Quote:
Originally Posted by whizzard
Haha, the last few years have been more or less the continuation of the years preceding that but with a main difference. I am no longer the person who pursued career progression single mindedly and with dogged determination. Instead, my main aim is to "cruise" and deliver my team's KPIs. It didn't take too much and too long for my slave driver boss to see through that and pressure was promptly applied. Don't get me wrong, cruising doesn't mean loafing off or not working. I pursue deals, execute them as flawlessly as I can and deliver the revenues but I wouldn't slog through the nights everyday or work on weekends any more unless on a very exceptional basis. In other words, I wouldn't voluntarily take the initiative to go the extra mile. In order to stand out in any organisation, you have to be super on but it is a conscious decision on my part not to be so.
My work also required me to travel frequently as it is a regional role. Initially, it was fun but requires loads of hard work. Before each trip, we would have to prepare the pitchbooks and work out the different strategies for each customer. In addition, most of the time I'll be meeting clients for the first time so the stress is intensified. For a number of years, I would travel every fortnight. These marketing trips are in addition to my role of executing the deals obtained in prior marketing trips. Even my gym instructor is getting fed up with my frequent requests to reschedule my training sessions!
So, the job is fairly intense as we need to juggle a few deals at various stages of closure in different countries at any point in time. The pay is not fantastic as I am still paid less than what I was previously paid. However, it is still more than enough to support my family's lifestyle with some leftover but not a lot that it would make a big difference in terms of my wealth accummulation since I have adopted a more extravagant lifestyle lately.
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Whizzard, your path has been very similar to mine. Laid off during the global financial crisis, but after accumulating a lot of wealth at a global institution, I joined a local firm at a huge paycut and tried to cruise. Like you the boss soon figured it out and put a lot of pressure and I responded to it by delivering. Again like you, I was able to deliver without working nights and weekends anymore although I travel regionally (a few days in the middle of the week) every week. The ability to deliver easily was because the demands of local firms are much lower than global firms.
What is different from you is that the local company I worked for got taken over by a very large mainly Asian conglomerate. After a few months of integration, the consultants they hired decided that I should run a division of the conglomerate. Haha. Last thing I really wanted, but I was curious. It came with a few interesting perks and I insisted on being paid the same level as when I was working for the global firm, which they relented. Now I get Business Class everywhere, even KL, and a nice car and driver both in Singapore and at the HQ country. I went from managing a team of 30 to 300 professionals. I thought it would be a nightmare, but no. I found someone to replace myself and embarked on a new journey. Now I travel every week, but to HQ in a foreign Asian country for a LOT of meetings. Between various committee and board meetings, I think I do about 30 a month. It's very low stress. I just sit there in a conference room and give groups of people who wander in a hard time then am whisked off to a nice lunch. I'm relearning golf in order to play with board members and have had to make a few new suits. Interestingly, one small Singapore company has already approached me to be on their board. I can already see my future retirement as being on a few Singapore company boards, being paid $50-100K each.
Point is that after you rise to a certain point in a large organization, everything suddenly becomes low stress.