Success is an obsession and our country is probably the most obsessed about it. Most Americans obsess about work, their jobs, job titles and how fast their promotion rocket is climbing. For some, working a full-time job still isn’t enough, and they further prove their ambition in the gig economy. From turning their own homes into B&B’s, transforming personal cars into taxis, delivering food for local restaurants, walking dogs or any number of on-demand jobs contracted via phone app, Americans keep themselves looking for every opportunity to generate income, including the so-called “hustle economy.”
I had a very sweet but very sexist boss who told me I wasn't eligible for a promotion to "manager" because of my "family commitments." (I was a single mother of two--the other candidate was male with a stay at home wife). At first I inwardly thought "going to sue the pants off you" but he went off to get coffee and I suddenly thought--that promotion will involve hours of reports and spreadsheets and such instead of what I was actually doing (working directly with defaulted contractors) and I LIKED what I did. By the time he got back, I found my self relieved, with a sensation that my eternally striving (and now late) father had evaporated off my back. The pay differential wasn't all that great, and I did get a raise in any event.
I eventually did get the title manager--I didn't really want it, since "attorney" worked better on letters for what I did. But by that time we were working out of our homes (way pre-Covid) and there wasn't much "management" work to do.
Because the job involved folks who had defaulted--contractors, auto dealers, fiduciaries, etc) the workload went WAY up during the 2008 recession and no, no overtime. But I turned 65 in 2009 and said I would retire to get Medicare, which was better insurance than my company offered. They asked me to stay on as "consultant" until a retirement trip I had planned, at an hourly fee, doing exactly the same work I had been. And boy did I make a lot more money each month, even after the business taxes and such connected with being my own "company."
I had a very sweet but very sexist boss who told me I wasn't eligible for a promotion to "manager" because of my "family commitments." (I was a single mother of two--the other candidate was male with a stay at home wife). At first I inwardly thought "going to sue the pants off you" but he went off to get coffee and I suddenly thought--that promotion will involve hours of reports and spreadsheets and such instead of what I was actually doing (working directly with defaulted contractors) and I LIKED what I did. By the time he got back, I found my self relieved, with a sensation that my eternally striving (and now late) father had evaporated off my back. The pay differential wasn't all that great, and I did get a raise in any event.
I eventually did get the title manager--I didn't really want it, since "attorney" worked better on letters for what I did. But by that time we were working out of our homes (way pre-Covid) and there wasn't much "management" work to do.
Because the job involved folks who had defaulted--contractors, auto dealers, fiduciaries, etc) the workload went WAY up during the 2008 recession and no, no overtime. But I turned 65 in 2009 and said I would retire to get Medicare, which was better insurance than my company offered. They asked me to stay on as "consultant" until a retirement trip I had planned, at an hourly fee, doing exactly the same work I had been. And boy did I make a lot more money each month, even after the business taxes and such connected with being my own "company."