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It's easy to get promoted. Just solve your company's problems in a single day.
Got a recalcitrant employee? Don't worry about them. Don't worry that you don't even know what “recalcitrant” means. Don't worry about anything.
Worrying is for losers. And you, sir or madam, are on the path to greatness.
Take that recalcitrant employee and give them a promotion. Possibly two. Whatever it is, get them higher up the ladder so they quit bothering the people who are doing the real work.
If you are the recalcitrant employee, pat yourself on the back. You just skipped up the career ladder. Nice.
What if you've got an impossible task? Don't wo — oh, you already know what I'm about to say. It's time to delegate!
Delegation is a superpower. Just give your work to people who are more qualified than you are.
In my case, nearly everyone at my company is more qualified than I am. That comes with being on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder.
So I have a lot of people to choose from. All I need is to cash in a long string of favors, and I can get the intern on my team to do my work AND fetch me a demi-tasse of Earl Grey.
Am I obnoxious for using the word “demi-tasse” in casual conversation? Of course. But you don't become a senior engineer by being polite. Good riddance.
Once the task is done, claim credit. All of it. It doesn't matter if the intern saved your hide. You gave them the OPPORTUNITY. You gave them TRUST. You gave them .
(Note to self: finish the above paragraph. Turns out you can't delegate everything, though it's not for lack of trying.)
Are you whizzing up the corporate hierarchy yet? No? Promoting bad employees and delegating hasn't gotten you there?
Don't worry (ha, you knew I was going to say that)! There's one more tool left in your arsenal, a tool so powerful, so damaging, that you can only inflict it on an organization once.
Threaten to quit.
That's it.
Preferably in the middle of an important project. Preferably when your manager's hair is standing on end from listening to clients demand results. Preferably at the worst possible moment for your company.
Note that you need to be a pretty big kahuna for this to make a splash in your corporate pond.
I'm a shrimp in my corporate pond, so my splash volume is about a demi-tasse.
But if done right, you can negotiate yourself to a higher salary, a better title, and one (or two, or three) more weeks of vacation per year.
When I did it, my boss just accepted my resignation.
That was not supposed to happen.
He was supposed to beg me to stay. He was supposed to offer me thousands of dollars. He was supposed to give me a promotion, dang it!
Clearly my promotion strategy needs work. And so do I. So if you happen to be hiring software engineers, drop me a line, won't you?
Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she's never quite; figured; it; out.
Previously:
• The graduate
• The best-laid plans
• Be like Homer Simpson
• 08/20/25: Acting out
• 06/23/25: All talked out
• 02/05/24: Dropping the ball
• 02/05/24: Eye eye, doctor
• 12/30/24: Bad music, cheap concerts, and all that jazz
• 12/04/24: No dollars and no sense
• 09/17/24: Gone crackers
• 09/12/24: A matter of manners
• 08/21/24: Keeping things simple --- is hard
• 08/13/24: DIY = 'Destroy It Yourself'
• 06/26/24: All in a day's work
• 05/23/24: The state of the art
• 05/16/24: Rounding one's corners
• 03/22/24: Gone loopy
• 03/05/24: Philosophy rocks