Everyone Rises To Their Level of Incompetence
I said I was going to recount a story about this issue of job security by using an example of a friend’s boss who I incorrectly thought had achieved job security. I don’t personally know my friends boss very well. I’ve met her a few times casually, but haven’t interacted with her on a deeper level. So, the story below is based on my friend’s recitation of the facts, as she knows them (& she knows them pretty well because she has access to all her bosse’s emails!). The fact pattern begins below.
The boss is an Executive Administrative Dean at an institute housed withiin a large university. She currently makes $215,000 dollars a year in this position. Prior to her appointment as dean, she was a Professor of Government at the college. During her teaching stint, she failed to earn tenure and I’m guessing that, that’s what prompted her move into administration.
The head of the institute was recently granted a promotion and is leaving her job. This dean is the number two employee at the institute. She naturally assumed that when the head of the institute left, she’d be promoted in her place and become president of the institute. Unfortunately for her, this presumption did not come true. Why? the college decided that her lack of tenure precluded her from heading any of it’s institute’s. Roadblock #1.
Upon realizing that her lack of tenure would impede any rise at the university, she decided to start looking for alternative, but equally prestigious jobs elsewhere. She applied to become president of Wellesley College (a very good liberal arts school in Massachusetts) — however, once again, her lack of tenure proved ominous. Even though she made it to the second round of interviews, Wellesley decided that they could not risk appointing a president who had “failed” to earn tenure while she was a faculty member. Roadblock #2.
At this point, the dean realized that her failure to receive tenure would impede her professional growth at most of the countries ivy league institutions (& maybe even many non-ivy’s). I’m not sure why it took her 15 years to realize this! — Anyway, she now understands that if she chooses to remain at the college, she will be stuck at the number two position as the Executive Administrative Dean (there’s no moving up without tenure). According to one of her emails, which she wrote write after receiving the Wellesley College rejection letter, she stated that she’d be willing to settle for a job as president of some NGO. I’m assuming she is now contacting headhunters who might set her put with one of these NGO gigs.
As I was thinking about this dean, I wondered why someone making $215,000 dollars a year, working a 9 to 5 job, would want to leave such a relatively stress free working environment. Why do I say the environment is “relatively stress free”? because the job allows her to write books on the side and to travel around the world promoting them! In fact, she’s written three books and she’s constantly away from the office promoting these books. She rarely needs to come into the office and only does if they are meetings she needs to attend or chair.
This dean is in her fifties, so the chances of her getting tenure at this point are pretty slim. I also found out that her husband is a doctor, which means his income is probably in the $400 – $500,000 dollar range (assuming he too is in his fifties & has been practicing for a few years). She is obviously tired of being the #2 and believes that she has what it takes to run the institute, but without tenure, her goose is cooked. But then again, her goose is not that bad! at this stage in her career & life, I don’t understand why she just doesn’t take the good salary with all the freedom she has to write books and travel and literally wait it out till retirement. If she was in her thirties and didn’t have tenure, I could see her trying to make a move, but she sat on it for almost 20 years and now it’s too late (she has 3 kids & maybe that had something to do with her inability to make moves. Plus, her husband’s a doctor & probably had a busy schedule & you can’t have both parents working around the clock. Someone has to be home with the kids, especially in a country where they’re no maids)
But…at $200,000 dollars a year, she has a good salary with very flexible working hours. If I were her, I’d just accept my #2 position & use my flex time to write better books that sold more copy! the more books she sells, the more money she’ll make, in addition to her salary (her 3 books she’s written are a bit too academic and academic books are not big sellers).
I thought her job was safe, but it turns out the university is very politely dropping a hint: no tenure, no promotion and that $200,000 dollar job may be costing them too much (anyone without security of tenure can be fired). I don’t think they’ll outright fire her (she’s been there too long). What they’ll probably do is slowly start reducing her levels of responsibility, hoping that she’ll finally see the light and resign on her own.
Do not underestimate your abilities. That is your boss’s job.
Sad that it took her 15 years to figure out the tenure thing. Since there’s no way around it (it’s apparent that she’s got no chance of getting it), I’m at a loss at figuring out what is best. It seems certain that she’s not going about life based on the money she’s getting now, but has set her heart on higher things which is commendable.
People like her inspire me to aim for higher but, sorry to say, plan way ahead of time…
I don’t feel sorry for her (her husband’s a doctor and she’s not going to starve) but why she thought she could move up without tenure is beyond me.
I guess the lesson of this story is to never overrate yourself! Based on what I was told about her and based on some of the emails I saw, she thought she was very good (& maybe she was!) but the world is full of smart, talented, people and you’ll be measured against your colleagues benchmarks. And if you don’t acquire one of those benchmarks, you won’t be let into the club.
Could it be the hints of loossing the job may be what is driving her “ambition”?
Maybe she new she had it good and milked it for the 15 years and now sees it all going away and is looking to make the next move?
Nice post
Don:
She’s not going to lose her job. I doubt they’ll fire her because she is a good and smart employee. However, she is not going to move up and I think she’s tired of being the number 2. She believes she has what it takes to be the number 1. The problem is, they are other TENURED faculty members who also believe this.
My point in reciting this story was not really to moan this woman’s plight, it was to highlight how much job insecurity there is, especially when you start making over 150,000 dollars a year. Very few private companies will pay you that much money if you don’t eventually start bringing in sales or clients.
The only exception I can think of are doctors who have a very specialized skill. But with most industries, you get to a point where you either move up (mainly by bringing in clients) or you move out.
The lesson? The lesson is that employment is debilitating. She is in a jam only because she does not appreciate the vastly better prospects she would have as her own boss.
The writer after all, has a much more profound impact on th world than does the professor.
Emmo:
Employment maybe debilitating, but you gotta pay your bills someway or at least until you can find a way to earn a living working for yourself!
But I think your point is correct – the job gives her free time to write books, which is unbelievable at the salary she is making and she should use that free time to write books and make money (since writing books did not bring her tenure!)
Yes, that too, but more importantly on the part of her self-actualisation. She seems to have all the rest of her needs sewn up, all she needs is a ‘becoming’ if you will. Now I am not sure this is a fact, but from my experience as a writer, I know that we do it primarily to impart knowledge and to feel that our ‘wisdom’ if you like, is appreciated.
I see I am being a little reckless with my punctuation. Pardon me. My point is that the professor who has run into a wall at his or her school, can take the alternative path of writing as it earns you just as much if not more in the way of attention and influence. Chomsky is a great example but he has tenure and at a big school, but other people like Norman G. Finkelstein have a much bigger voice and are more famous than they would have been if they were just lowly professors.
Michael Scheuer, Hannah Arendt, Ayn Rand, etc. I dunno even if they were professors. With her writing, she is on to a good thing. Now to establish that cult.
emmo, emmo,
Hannah Arendt?! — her books are incomprehensible! I remember having to read her gibberish writings in a political philosophy class I took (phew….God spare me!) — whoever said no one in the real world will pay you to philosophize was partly right.
As for Michael Scheuer and Chomsky….I just like their left leaning political philosophies because I myself lean to the left.
Academic books are actually not big sellers. Generally, it’s because they’re just not particularly interesting and can be a bit too dense for a lot of people. And since I’ve flipped through some of her books, I can say with authority, that they are boring and will not become big sellers.
Chomsky should thank Hugo Chavez for pushing up his book sales way up.