On a more serious note I used to be very ambitious. Left school at 16, Got a trainee position at £70 a week in a professional occupation at a major international blue chip company. Within 4 years I was assistant manager on £14k (back when the average person in my areas was delighted to be on 10k!!!
Then black monday/tuesday/wednesday hit (i can't remember the day. lol). The companies' product stopped selling, got sold to an American Company who only wanted the newest product to save them developing a competitive alternative and I got made redundant (6k redundancy for 4 years wasn't bad)
Didn't lose my ambition but with no paper qualification behind me I had to start at the bottom again in a warehouse. Within 4 years I was Operations manager on 26k (average in my area still 12-14k at this time) Then a year later a huge contract went due to interference from Partners above me (overruling my decisions.)
I turned that company from a £1 million turnover into a £10 million turnover company within 3 years from all my implementations computerwise, procedurewise and its internal structure. Profit percentages and productivity were increased and it didn't mean less manpower. Noone lost their jobs, just that there was less wasted time and made us the best in that particular field in the UK. The whole workforce loved their workplace. They were proud to be part of it. They were rewarded with better pay. They got company pensions at all levels. Things were great until people with ambition who couldn't see the big picture ruined it for all. They only saw money and didn't see how All the changes had made that money. In the end their decisions lost them millions. I would bet they didn't think too much about others losing livelyhoods plus employment that they loved.
What did all that effort gain me. A basic statutory government redundancy for 5 years service!!! Very nice...not!!! I still have all those employees greet me with happy faces and want to talk to me for hours. Very rare for that to happen between employee and boss but true. They speak fondly of those times, feel sad for their and my loss. Wish things had not happened but the closk cannot be turned back.
Those partners sold that dieing business for £1 million less than 2 years later.
I lost ambition for a few years and just did basic jobs earning enough to pay the bills.
When my ambition returned I got another great job only to be ousted by company politics (the old clique) in a very old fashioned firm that was run in the same way it was pre computers.
I haven't worked since. That was a few years ago.
The end result? No ambition now. No incination to work myself hard for others to waste what my efforts make.
Why do I talk of this in an ambition thread?
Ambition was the killer for the UK. The country went from being people in jobs for life, working their way up on a lowish wage but being happy, to a country that was money obsessed. The unions destroyed every company demanding more and more. Those companies then couldn't compete due to their now huge wage bills compared to the work they paid for. Thatcher rescued the country from bankcruptcy and everyone then blamed her for the decline however it was formed decades earlier.
My point. Ambition is pretty dangerous. Its great to improve oneself but if everyone is jumping from company to company then most companies do not develop where other countries whose staff get a job and keep it retain their skillbase. Those companies move on faster than those whose 'ambitious' employees are doing a few yessr stint at many companies taking their skills from company to company.
Once a skiill leaves, a similar qualified/experienced employee is not a replacement like for like for a while. In certain occupations in a company this can be devastating and stagnante things until the new employee is up to speed.
There is also the ambition that leads to people who do not quite se the full picture getting a little political and pulling the whole house down (as happened to me in my second job.) Ambitious people who have their own agenda, Trying to make a name for themselves and not seeing the bigger picture.
So whilst ambition can be good it will almost always benefit the single person in the short term, its long term effect runs full circle where it comes to haunt people in the end
It can also mean a small number of ambitious people so self concerned with their own 'improvement' can bring the whole house down and ruin many other people's lives.
