4 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I work for the federal government in a non-hazardous line of law enforcement and some of of our managers/supervisors have taken this route.  They were really good at field work and wanted a promotion.  Well, then their line of work completely changes, for not much more pay either.  They become a desk jockey, sit in meetings half the day, listen to their employees complain, and read emails endlessly.  I've had the opportunity to apply for a promotion like this a couple times and I kept coming back to the same question: why would I want to do something like this all the time for only a minimal more amount of money?  And so I stay put instead and just keep working as a field agent.  Just isn't worth another few thousands bucks/year.

Exactly, management can be thankless torture if you are not trained for it and have a totally different set of skills to be able to manage it.  It can also be very, very rewarding. 

I opted for the promotion because I was simply getting older.  climbing up huge walls of rebar to get to the tops of bridges, lifting big heavy construction samples, night work..

 

it all kinda beat the snot out of me as I aged.  I was tired.

 

I figured I could promote, and teach younger engineers tricks of the trade, etc.  

 

on the fence right now if it was a good decision or not.