[abramN]

I was a great example of the Peter Principle in action. I had climbed through the ranks of software development to become the director of software engineering at a mortgage firm, then after less than a year moved on to director of business applications at another mortgage firm. Besides the headiness of the role, I was of course attracted to the money. My parents were impressed - I was really going places. Fast forward a year, and I was dealing with entrenched employees that challenged me at every turn, a non-stop pace of enhancements to the software that left us little time to optimize the software (so it was running ever-slower with all the bloat of additional code), users that had a direct line to the CEO - who would run to me with every complaint, and favoritism shown to other managers that often meant we were serving several masters at once. For my part, I didn't have much experience with pushing back or protecting my people, so I don't believe they trusted me all that much. We committed to too much. I fell into a funk, and began feeling that whatever I did didn't matter. My work began to suffer and I was forgetting stuff and making mistakes.

My boss was sympathetic, as he was dealing with a lot of the same challenges with other department heads and the CEO. When I finally announced my resignation, he told me he didn't blame me, and that he had told the CEO he was leaving within the next couple of months himself!

I've since gone on to be a manager at another, much smaller company/start-up. The hours are longer sometimes, and I feel like I'm running in a lot of different directions. But the pressure has reduced quite a bit, and I'm liking the culture a lot more. I think I'll stay at this level for a while before I try and move up again. Sometimes it's good to take a step back and re-assess instead of blindly charging ahead and getting yourself in even deeper. For now I'm just focusing on upping my value and taking care of my people. And just putting in the work without worrying about if it's "perfect" or not. That's all I can do.