New Spin to the Old Theory

When I started working in a cube farm, I would often get scoffs and eye rolls from older employees as the young kid that didn't know what he was doing. Even when I mastered the job after- oh, I don't know, a week, they would come up with some justification as to why I don't comprehend the *real* workings of the office. Even when I got to the point where I understood the business better than my managers, the older employees would just shake their heads at how naive the kid was, and how I just didn't get it. So eventually I would quit. What I told myself over a beer in a fit of depression over how I couldn't keep a job was that the only reason these people were still there is because they had no other promise to offer the world. The only thing they had that I didn't was an amazing tolerance for stupidity, doubtlessly because they were themselves a part of the problem.

I now see that my theory needs adjusting. After quitting or being downsized from five or six of these corporate environments, I finally stuck with one for a while. They still didn't think that I fit. My boss actually sat down with me and asked me (this is true), "why are you still here!?" But I wasn't going to let them win this time. So, finally they gave up and promoted me, if only to get me out of their office.

Now, in my new position, I realized something. The older employees around the bottom rung aren't the idiots. They're the lazy ones. They have no aspirations. They actually avoid promotions, for fear that it will raise the expectations of them. The idiots are the ones who sat in those bottom rung desks for five years, and kept applying for promotions but never got them. Then, one day, they're at an interview and the competition is young guys like me who have lots of promise, but a sketchy history of job-hopping and adversive behavior. The hiring manager looks at their resume and thinks, "wow, this guy has eight years of experience in our company. He's probably learned a lot in that time! I think he's our man."

Yeah. He got eight years of experience because he couldn't get a job anywhere else. Anyone worth their weight in salt would be able to apply for a better job at a better company with four years of experience and a keen insight into the business world. In other words, they all left the company, after constantly applying for the jobs they're qualified to do but losing out to a guy who has been sitting at the same desk for fifteen years.

Now, I finally got that promotion. I didn't get it by my own merits; my old boss pulled some strings to get me in my current position, and once I was gone, she transferred out herself, and now the whole department is shot to hell. But in my new position, I realize I have walked into the office where all those employees are who were never good enough to soar up the ladder, but eventually if you stand at the bottom for long enough, that ladder will come crashing down, and all you have to do is walk over and put your hands on that top rung. I didn't climb my way up to get here either, but I expected at least a challenge. No, as it turns out, my last department had smarter, more capable employees than this one, because in my old department, there were still some promising, ambitious youth left who hadn't been around long enough to quit.