Not management material?

So if you're anything like me, you really don't want to manage people for the sake of managing people. You also don't want to become a manager just for the salary. I've said this to many people in the past, it's really like whoring yourself. Why on earth would you subject yourself to anything you don't want to do just for money? I am definitely more of a technical person. I get daily enjoyment of working on interesting problems and finding solutions. I don't wake up in the morning and say, "Gee, I can't wait and go sit in my cubical and shuffle paper and attend 8 meetings and working groups." There needs to be some substance to what I do.

It's really quite funny that one of the big companies I worked for tried to reach out to it's shareholders and say that "We have too much middle management. It's inefficient and costing us too much so we're going to lay off 10-20% of our management." All the while the internal pay and reward structure remains the same. They continue to push their employees to become leads and managers because "that's how you succeed here." They will continue to breed more managers whether it's good for the company and the employees or not.