Hello --
I am wondering how you monkeys value the people you work directly with. I appreciate any feedback or personal work experiences.
I work for a large, multinational company that is primarily an 'occupier' of real estate. I am on the corporate real estate team. I have worked here for two years, fresh out of undergrad.
My team is a total of three guys, including myself. I am subordinate to both. I am also 4 decades younger than both of them. I value both of their experiences in real estate deal-making (primarily leases), however, I do not value personally what they have made of their careers and their current lifestyles.
One guy is particularly difficult to interact with. He is bitter, he is a "know it all", and a self-promoting shit talker.
Enough of my complaining...I am young, probably bitching, but curious if I am looking at these guys the wrong way. The way I see it is, I have no desire to become what these guys are. I have had great experiences learning from them the past two years and working for a dynamic company. But, is it time to jump ship if I do not value the people I work directly for, and will continue to be around?
Sometimes you look up to your bosses. Sometimes you don't.
Either way, you can always learn from them, even if you're learning what not to do in the future when someone works for you.
You aren't just there to learn how to divide a NOI by a cap rate. You are there to learn as much as you can, holistically.
I know this isn't how you meant it, but it worth repeating - the world and the people in it don't exist for your benefit. They have no obligation to provide value or opportunity to you and your career - sometimes the bitter older colleague is just that, and you have to accept that it has no bearing on your job performance. Expecting your colleagues to be accretive to your experience is.... not the right attitude. Not a bad one, and certainly if you aren't getting anything out of your job, then leave, but the reasoning shouldn't be "my colleagues aren't providing me with value anymore"
I also disagree here - for every job I have accepted throughout my career (besides the first), the team and especially the boss/manager for the role was a MAJOR consideration, and the lens I viewed them through always considered this key question: is this a person that will encourage and support my growth or someone that only cares about their agenda? I've had both in my career and I learned from my first job what it's like having a boss that: 1) doesn't give a shit about you 2) will throw you under the bus whenever needed instead of accepting responsibility for his own mistakes and 3) will stifle your growth if it benefits them. My direct managers after that have always offered opportunities for me to step up, challenge myself and have guided me along the way. They did this because they wanted me to grow into more of their responsibilites (i.e. less work for them!), rather than be threatened by it and undermine me. Now that I just wrote that out, I literally picture that classic boss vs leader infographic - man it's fucking spot on. All other things equal, why should anyone want to be in a role under a boss vs. a leader? Don't shame the guy for wanting to be a part of a team that's less disfunctional and actually cares about the people in it - i've experienced both and never plan on going back to the dark side, even if it means better money. I put up with it when I had to in order to get to where I am today, as I'm sure many others here have, but from that point on I made a concsious effort to avoid those environments and that's what the OP is trying to do. I don't think that is a bad attitude - I think it's an attitude of someone that wants to continue succeeding and may be realizing that their potential in the current seat is reaching a peak, whether it's directly attributable to the boss or not. Also, when people geniunely like/value the their team they produce much better work so there's that too.