{"id":26943,"date":"2023-10-15T15:23:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-15T15:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microloannexus.com\/news\/68-year-old-engineer-spent-50-years-at-one-company-and-always-told-his-bosses-to-leave-me-alone-let-me-learn-the-job\/"},"modified":"2023-10-15T15:23:49","modified_gmt":"2023-10-15T15:23:49","slug":"68-year-old-engineer-spent-50-years-at-one-company-and-always-told-his-bosses-to-leave-me-alone-let-me-learn-the-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microloannexus.com\/?p=26943","title":{"rendered":"68-year-old engineer spent 50 years at one company and ‘always’ told his bosses to ‘leave me alone’: ‘Let me learn the job’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kip Turner wasn’t necessarily planning on joining AT&T for his entire 50-year career when he applied there in 1973 \u2014 but that’s what’s happened, and he’s learned a lot about engineering and career longevity along the way.<\/p>\n

Turner, now 68, first joined the company as a station installer when he was 18 years old, without a college degree, and with the idea he’d return to college to become a veterinarian.<\/p>\n

Instead, over the next five decades, he took on about eight different roles across the engineering space, and he now works as a lead product development engineer near Faulkner County, Arkansas.<\/p>\n

He’s also taken on plenty of younger mentees along the way and thinks that, despite today’s culture of job-hopping, even today’s young grads could build their own 50-year career.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s possible,” Turner tells CNBC Make It. “I think it’s realistic \u2014 if that’s what you want to do.”<\/p>\n

“In most younger employees that I’ve counseled, they don’t have the patience to stay at one one company for this long,” he adds.<\/p>\n

From his perspective, Turner says the key to his 50-year career was staying focused on becoming an expert in his current role, and then learning to “be content with what you’re doing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘I have always told my supervisors to leave me alone’<\/h2>\n
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Turner says he’s never been “especially aggressive” about trying to get promoted.<\/p>\n

“I have always told my supervisors leave me alone,” he says. “Let me learn the job. If I want to change I’ll let you know. Whether it’s a different job, a lateral time move, or a promotion.”<\/p>\n

Over the years, he’s learned of new opportunities by asking around among colleagues, and even letting his boss know. “I usually don’t think you have to tell your supervisor you’re applying for a position, but I always did,” Turner says. “And I’d tell them why \u2014 not that I’m unhappy, but I’m looking for a better opportunity, a different opportunity, or a higher salary.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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