I've mentioned once or twice recently that I'm looking for new work. Here's my situation: I've been with my company for 7 years this coming April. I do corporate research, mainly nationwide UCC filings and searches, including tax liens, judgments and litigations. Last year, an opening came up where we needed a manager for a re-vamped division in our company. It wasn't exactly my area of specialty but I figured what the hey- I applied for it and interviewed. I didn't get the position, which wasn't too much of a surprise. The person they did hire had only been working part-time at the company for 2-3 months! For all intents, she was another outside hire into management. When the boss called me in to break the news to me, he told me that they were very impressed with my presentation and they had no idea that I was so qualified or wanting a promotion (duh! I'd only been working there since 2000!). I think they fear that I'm going to up and quit one day because of my church. But as I have told them over and over, my church is too small to support us full-time so I have to work a secular job for the foreseeable future. I still don't think they entirely believe me. Anyway, the boss tells me that "within a couple of months" (this was last summer) that they were going to split my department in two and they wanted me to "seriously" consider taking over the new department as manager. To be honest, I took that with a grain of salt, because knowing my boss, he's the kind who would sooner hire from without for a manager's position than promote from within. I went home and told my wife about that and said "if anything is going to happen, it will happen by the end of the year (2006)." Well, here are in 2007 and not a single word has been said to me about the splitting of my department or my promotion. I assumed that if anything is going to happen, it will happen by next month at the very latest. We have a "staff retreat" ( ) next month where the company will talk about goals and changes for 2007. They had a board meeting last week. I assume that if anything was discussed about the new division and my promotion, it would have been decided last week and would be announced within the next few weeks. Yet I still have heard absolutely NOTHING from ANYONE about ANYTHING. To be honest, I feel I was lied to. I think the boss gave me a cock-and-bull story to make me feel better about not getting the earlier promotion. But hey, I'm a big boy and I've been turned down before. I didn't need a pep talk or a consolation prize- just be straight up and honest with me, that's all I ask. Anyway, I've been looking to leave the company, mainly based on this. I haven't had a lot of luck since I need a job with approximately the same hours and pay I currently have now and most of those jobs are up in Wilmington, 40 miles away. To me, I am upset more than anything about having been lied to. If my boss had called me in and said that the "couple of months" timetable had been pushed back or they think I wasn't up to the promotion, that would be one thing. But to have heard absolutely nothing, not even a status report, concerns me greatly. To be honest, there have been very few internal promotions at work. Some people have been there almost 10 years and have nothing to show for it. And the company invests ZERO in professional development, so I really don't have much reason to hope, knowing the track record of the company. And we have a position called a "senior CSR" but no one has been promoted into that position, although I can think of several employees who could be- and should be- promoted into it. I figure as long as I have to work on the outside, I might as well try to make something of myself and try for promotions just like the next guy. I've been looking mainly at financial and insurance positions, although I do have retail management experience. I'd really love to get back into teaching, but there are few such openings in this area and it doesn't pay that well. So far, I have had one interview (with Ameriprise) and I probably could have had the job but the office is between Wilmington and Philadelphia (which I didn't know when I applied) and that's way too far to commute. My annual review is probably in a week or two and I already made it clear in my remarks that I believe working for this company is a dead-end job with little room for advancement. We'll see how they take that. More as things unfold...
That's completely normal. They say something and nothing happens. Or something completely different. I don't really know where this comes from but I blame external 'consultants' aka hot air blowing machines. Same crap here - it's one day this, one day that. Never, ever hold them to their promises or 'plans'. I'll give you an example as to how it worked at the newspaper I still work for. They have been trying to relaunch their website for about 2 years now (!). When I came in a year ago, I had nothing to do with it but dropped a few hints that I'd be willing to help out. Of course they took it, so I wrote a concept or three. It was all welcomed with open arms (doesn't mean anyone said thank you, Cass, for doing a second job for us for free). Then it was shoved into a drawer and forgotten. The web agency bumbled on, management changed their requirements like clockwork whenever they finished something. The problem was, we have a CEO that's 30 years old. Guy should know a thing or two about teh internets tubes but doesn't. BUT: he's the archetypus of authoritarian management. Everything has to go thru him, from strategic, company-wide decisions to the smallest little competition raffling two tickets for the cinema In short, he's completely unable to delegate responsibility. He's either too young and inexperienced or too stubborn to see that you can't do everything by himself and that this is what you have experts for. These types see themselves as masters of the universe, with everybody else just there to do their bidding without questions. The result: decisions are delayed by months now, you can't get a meeting with him, bills are not paid because he insists on signing even €3 for lightbulbs, nothing. Anyway, one day he called me into his office and asked if I wanted to take over project management for the website relaunch. On a temporary basis, until it's actually ready. I didn't buy it, but I said yea, sure, I like a little change then and when and I can go back to writing after it's done. We had a good talk. Asked me if I planned on getting pregnant anytime soon and that it would be a pity because 'we need you' (for what?!) The start of this would have been Dec. 1st. Of course, nothing happened but business as usual. On December 15th he fired me for no reason whatsoever And some are asking why people hate management types. It's not because they earn 500 times more or so. It's because they simply don't deserve it, especially when the only creative cost cutting they can come up with is cutting jobs. Sure there are a few good among them, but from what I hear, not so many. I do wonder tho, where do these people come from? And why do they always fall upwards? No matter how badly they fuck up, in a few months you'll see them in an even better position, fucking up again.
I am come to a similar conclusion- don't look a gift promotion in the mouth. Assuming nothing happens, when and if I do resign, they no doubt will want to know why I'm leaving. They'll get an earful then. That would be interesting. My co-worker stated she was leaving and going to go work for one of our competitors last summer. They convinced her to stay, with, I assume, a raise. If I gave them my two-weeks notice, I wonder what, if anything, they would do to try to get me to stay?
Was this the first time you'd applied for a promotion to management? If so, I could see why they were surprised since you hadn't expressed any prior interest. It'd be like me going to my news director and applying for the Chief Photographer's job: He'd be floored that I was even interested. My experience in life (both personally and professionally) is that people who wait to be noticed usually aren't. You've got to take the initiative.
It's a good thing you applied for it. At least now they know you're interested in moving up. That being said, it does sound like they're being weasels (as management is wont to do--you sure you could fit in? ) regarding the possible new management position.
Me too, on both counts. >EDIT< Correction: I have leadership experience. Leaders make better managers.
"!" My last supervisor got promoted to a different department because her boss couldn't stand her but had no reason to fire her. Rather than have the balls to deal with her like an adult, she talked her up to HR just to be rid of her.
