A year ago I took a job at an organization for a little under what I was hoping my expected salary would be. When I was interviewing with them the location was very inconvenient, but they said that once I learned how to the background work (they being my direct supervisor, the COO and the CFO) I would be promoted to director of department (the department in which I am the only employee in) which should be sometime within the first year. This was an exciting opportunity to really grow in my field. I was timid to bring up the promotion because I was learning a completely new role with very little assistance and could tell there would be some stumbles along the way. I kept getting more and more reasonability put on me and it kept making it harder to succeed but I powered through.
I am finally in a place where I feel successful at my job and that feeling was reassured when I had my performance review last week and it said I was exceeding expectations. I worked up my nerve and asked my boss if we could talk about a promotion this week, the one I was promised when I initially joined. 5 people got promoted this week, I sit down with my meeting with my boss and not only am I apparently no where close to my promotion, but she tried to make my performance review worse. I called her on it, I stated that I am doing the same job as my predecessor who was the director of the department, and she put my grade back up but left a comment for HR so she could point to it when I asked for my promotion again. I am so livid and disappointed, for a long time I had recruiters reaching out like crazy, but said this would be a great opportunity for myself. Now the job market is drying up and I just can't keep doing this anymore. My career has been one frustration after another, I don't want to do this. I don't get why we have to do this. Sorry for the rant, but I am just in such a weird space at the moment.
TL;DR: I was promised a promotion when I took a job. I got a performance review saying I was exceeding expectations and when I asked for the promotion my boss made my performance review worse and said I was not close to a promotion.