The greasy pole, or the onset of ambition

I've never been particularly ambitious. My form teacher at my first grammar school wrote on my end of term report that I was over inclined to rest on my laurels and time has proved him correct.
I do just enough to get comfortable and only move if bored or threatened, or if I suddenly get ambitious.
I've already posted about my ambitions for 1978. Learn to drive, new house, new job. I started work at Superdrug and found myself surrounded by ambitious people with differing levels of ruthlessness. When Superdrug started in 1966, it was a very hands-on set up. The Goldsteins did everything and as the company grew they recruited like minded people to take the company forward. They never once recruited an area manager. On the retail side, everyone started at the bottom, as a trainee manager. They learned how the company worked by doing the work. Those with talent got their own store very quickly. They were expanding at a steady rate, without having to go into debt and keeping all expenditure under control. There was never a penny wasted. As the company grew they needed an area manager and they appointed someone who'd been a manager at the very start. He then became a Regional Director as the company expanded. It was said that if you cut the arm off a Superdrug area manager, you'd see "Superdrug" running through the arm, like letters in a stick of rock.
I wasn't into such naked ambition. If it was a case of "compete or retreat", I'd leave them to it.
And that was how it was for two or three years.
Then I reached thirty and I decided I'd better get a move on. I decided to pull my weight a little more and improve my performance. I even asked to be considered for any new shops that might be opening. My bosses were gobsmacked. They'd got used to me doing just enough to stay out of trouble and there I was, bright as a button and looking for promotion. A few months later and I still felt the same way. I was based in Northampton but travelling to all the stores in a forty mile radius. I even transferred to Peterborough for a while, and commuted daily.
This went on for a year or two. I was getting more and more frustrated, and my bosses were digging their heels in. I had to get another job and I didn't care where.
Some people are naturally ambitious, but remain affable. My ambition made me angry mean and nasty. I was not nice to know.