Promotion Frustrations
I am upset. I have been in a job now for about 6 months. My manager new of my career intent and thought this would be the perfect place for me to get valuable experience. It turns out we were supposed to get 4 positions in our office and 3 in a Texas office. Instead, we ended up with one position and the others were given to the TX office. My beef is that I have done the groundwork for this position such as taking the professional examinations plus I have the related background. The person that was chosen totally has no experience in this field, has taken no exams and has fooled around most of the time. I feel like she got the job based on who she partied with. I am not sure I have a future here if you have to party with the right person since I always thought you got job offers by your performance and education. Boy was I wrong. I am so upset I don' t know what to do. There probably aren' t going to be any more of these positions in 2007 unless they have people leave. What is one to do? I didn' t interview for the promotional position because we were not required to since it was part of our career path; so I did not have a chance to give more reasons as to why I deserve the position. There were about 5 of us in the department who applied and were all more qualified than the girl that was chosen. I think it was totally unfair. It upsets me every time I see her. What is one to do? When I talked to the manager that chose her she said "she thinks like an ____job tile here) only because she sat with her partier friend for a little while to see what she did. I find it frustrating and am tempted to look outside the company but am afraid I won' t have enough experience in this department to get the job I want. How do I make this situation better for my current job so I don' t get passed over for the next time if there is one. I have been told by my boss I have excellent work ethics and that I work my ass off. my production is usually better than others according to the spreadsheet they keep and I have excellent attendance and pursuing the education they want. What else should I do? I am not a partier and know I am not up to that. I have had a few snotty comments about be not drinking enough because I will only drink one drink and stop because I don' t want to get drunk. Any advise?
Interesting comment: "tempted to look outside the company but am afraid I won' t have enough experience in this department to get the job I want" First, you have to separate your feeling for the other worker and look at yourself. If you don' t think you have the experience to get a job outside the company, why think you could get that promotion? In addition, there was only one opening and five of you trying for the job so chances were against you anyway. Yes, it could be that the person chosen parties better than you. Get used to it. People are chosen for jobs for a lot of (wrong) reasons... better looking, boss' s niece, sexual favors, etc... What you need to do is move on from this incident and keep performing so that you have more that just six months of experience to show. If the whole episode grates on you so badly, look for another job but I think you realize that you are at a level that you probably think you should be... for now. Get a little more experience there and then see what your options are. It is unreasonable to expect a promotion after 6 months anywhere. Suck it up and stay put. After you' ve been there a year or so, you might be able to get the promotion you want. And stop worrying about what this other girl knows or doesn' t. It is none of your business. You don' t know what' s on her resume, you don' t know what she said in her interview and if she really isn' t up to the job, she' ll fail and create an opening. With 6 months total experience behind you, you' re hardly in a position to judge her fitness for the spot.
You can' t change other people. Use this experience and learn from it. Assuming that you are correct and that person got promoted because she/he partied with the right people, it is actually a logical basis for making business decisions. Just about every job I got since college has been due in part largely because somebody referred me. It takes two things to get a job done, technical ability, as well emotional intelligence for harmonious team work. Don' t worry so much about people who don' t belong where they shouldnt, if you don' t have the technical ability to stay where you are at, it will catch up. I disagree with Tess' s suck it up and deal with it approach though. I mean until you find something better, yeah deal with it. But the real question you should be asking is "How do you go about findind something better?" It is normal to have insecurities about learning/doing new things but if you accept your current perceived limit of competence, then you have reached your limit in your career. The key to everything is to take your crappy azz situation and making something good out of it. The more I hate my current work situation the more motivated I am to find another job, take more classes, try another project. Here's what concerns me in your post. "It upsets me every time I see her." While I can understand the emotion of being resentful towards someone whom you perceive to have "stolen" what you think should've been yours, it will not be wise in your situation to give in to this emotion. The girl may or may not deserve the position, there is no way you can know for sure, and it's not up to you to decide anyway. However, here are the facts you yourself acknowledge: You do not have enough experience to seek a higher level position elsewhere. Taking these facts into consideration, do you really think it is a good idea to make her your enemy? Whether you plan to wait for another opening in your company, or stay put long enough to gain experience to qualify for a higher position elsewhere, turning on a person who is friends with the boss is not the way to make it happen. And why are you angry at her anyway? She is who she is. Is it her fault that she has an extroverted personality and makes friends easily? Why should she play down what comes to her naturally just so she can level the playing field for everyone? Some people are just lucky to have been born with type A personality. It's no more rational to resent them for it than it is to resent someone for being attractive, or having above average intelligence, or being born into a well off family. She is not at fault here. She was merely offered the job she wanted, and she did what most people would do in this situation--she accepted it. I have been in your situation in the past, and I can relate, I really can. However, I've learned that the best thing to do when you find yourself in a situation where you feel that your accomplishments are not justly rewarded, is to come up with a plan for getting yourself out of that situation rather than quietly dwell on the unfairness of it all. In your case, get the experience you yourself admit you need and start looking for something better. You'll drive yourself crazy fuming over things you can't change. I' m going to disagree with Creative. With only 6 months experience behind you, you can' t really find another job, certainly you can' t find one at a higher level. It doesn' t make sense to take a lateral move when you don' t have anything else on your resume. It would be a HUGE hit to your resume to change jobs at this point if you even could. An interviewer is going to GRILL you on why you' re in your first job and already want to leave after only 6 months. If you then let out that you haven' t advanced quickly enough for your liking, they' re going to laugh all the way to the waste paper bin where they will deposit your application. How do you find something better? You build experience. After you' ve got a full year under your belt, and a good reference to go with it (work hard, get along with others, show up every day on time, don' t make too many mistakes, don' t bring drama to the office, don' t be too high maintenance, etc.), THEN you can look elsewhere if you can' t stand to be at this place anymore. Until then, you need to stick it out for the greater good of building your experience. And who knows, in another 6 months you might get promoted where you are too. | |
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