I’m That Loser Who Got Demoted

How one person coped with having a demotion on their CV

I’ve worked incredibly hard for the past 20 years to build a successful career in my chosen industry. And I really thought that I was good at what I do, and respected amongst my peers.

I’ve built teams, created and implemented budgets, improved practices, and employed and trained many people.

So when my company recently commenced the process of restructuring our organization to be more lean and efficient, I was expecting to be given the opportunity to step up into one of the new roles that would oversee multiple locations and teams.

Restructures can be stressful, but they sometimes give our career the boost that it needs — and sometimes they don’t

The role that I viewed as mine was going to be a fantastic challenge and significantly more complex than my current role. And I was quickly preparing myself to take on this challenge:

• I was creating schedules and meeting plans;
• Reviewing and preparing for the increased travel requirements; and
• Considering how I would manage this significant change while ensuring I had adequate time to spend with my wife and daughter.

The restructuring wasn’t planned to come into effect for months to come, but I wanted to be ready while giving my team and manager the confidence that I was capable of taking on the challenge.

But apparently, all my efforts were for naught.

On the day that we were due to find out about the final organizational structure, my manager called me into his office.

There’s been a change to your role.

Yes! I thought excitedly. Here comes the big news!

Your new role is now with a different team as a subject matter expert. And you’ll now be based in the city office.

To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. I was struggling to understand what this change meant. I needed time to process this.

How would this change impact on my career?

Going from a role with “manager” in my title to a new role as a “subject matter expert” appears like a demotion of sorts. In all honesty, my initial reaction to being told what my new role would be was to feel insulted.

All this effort that I had put into building my team, to prepare for the new challenge that I was expecting to take on, all the preparation that I had done so that my team could operate more self-sufficiently, and here I was being told that it was all for nothing.

More importantly, subject matter experts don’t have any personnel reporting to them. Rather than being a person who directs work, I would now be the person doing the work. I’m not afraid of the doing part, but as someone who has spent a decade or more scheduling and delegating work, this feels like a significant drop in responsibility.

And how would this impact my life?

I work in an industry where most personnel travel regularly to undertake their work. People in this industry can spend weeks away from home at a time. I was accustomed to the travel. In fact, staying in one location for an extended period of time can feel alien to me.

In my current role, I am at an airport every Monday morning. This feels normal. In this new role, I will find myself commuting to a city-based office and sitting behind a desk all day.

I’ll actually need to start ironing shirts on Sundays. I don’t know if I am OK with this.

After further discussion with my manager and my wife, the reality of this change began to dawn on me

My manager is a very unemotional and controlled person. They need to be given immense responsibility and many direct reports. He laid out the details of my new role in a very matter-of-fact way:

• You will be city-based, no more travel.
• Your pay remains the same as your current salary.
• You will work standard city based hours (an 8-hour day).
• You will no longer have direct reports.
• You will report to a different manager, but your focus will continue to be on your current site.

What shocked me the most about the above points is that I would essentially be receiving the same pay, for fewer hours of work, and less responsibility.

More importantly, being city-based means that I get to go home to my wife and daughter every night. There would be significantly fewer disgustingly early mornings at the airport.

The more I thought about this change, the more it dawned on me that this could be a very positive change indeed. But just how good this change is really hit me when I broke the news to my wife. The look of excitement and happiness on her face when I told her really made me realize that this would be a very good change for us.

Ultimately, how this looks on my CV really doesn’t matter. Sure, it won’t look great. But I have a young daughter who will now get to see her Daddy every night.

So if doing a role that keeps me home most nights, and requires significantly fewer hours per week, then I have no issues with the impact that this change may or may not have on my career.

My family comes first. My career can happen later.