tl;dr – thought I was going places at work, boss hired a friend of mine into a managers roll directly above me after I was told months ago that their plan was to give me that job. I’m sad about it.
So I work in an Aftersales capacity for a European manufacturer of specialist equipment in their UK office. The product is generally pretty good actually, and the company seems to be doing very well. It’s far from a dream job; no fucker ever CHOOSES to work in an role like mine, it’s communicating with people who have exclusively bad news to give you. Either faulty or damaged equipment, sometimes items that are critical for their own businesses to run. So people can be understandably disgruntled sometimes. That’s ok, this is the line of work I landed in, so I just get on with it.
For 2 years I really busted my ass for this company. It was a lot of work for one person, I stayed late 30/45 mins every day, never moaned, I just wanted to make sure everything was done. For my own benefit really.
It got out-of-hand, was struggling to cope and little to no support from the important people upstairs. I called a meeting with the Office Manager to try and get reassurances that things were going to improve. I was told that they knew times were tough for me, and that the long term plan was find an administrator of some kind to help with day to day, and to make me the departmental manager. That was enough for me at the time, knowledge that things were going to improve going onward. I came out of that meeting, that I called because I had too much work, with additional work to do in the form of some basic reporting tasks (which I assumed was in preparation for more managerial tasks).
Foreshadowing.
Fast forward a few months, and I get a call upstairs for a meeting with the GM and Office Manager. The GM tells me that they are looking to employ an Aftersales Manager in order to take pressure off the Office Manager and to help me and the service employees. I told them I would be interested in this, and, I shit you not, they both looked at me like I’d hopped up on the desk and curled one out on the GMs desk.
GM: “You’ve taken me by surprise there. OM? Did you have any idea that OP would want to do this?”
OM: “No, I had no idea.”
My piss immediately boiled. Absolute audacity.
Anyway, he asked me a few questions about departmental management that I was in no way prepared for, and that was that.
A week later, I’m called on again. They tell me, with beaming smiles, that they have hired a new manager. And, he’s a very good friend of mine at that.
My friend, who I love dearly, was a supervisor I had at a previous job. When he left that job, I immediately told OM and GM that he was available for employment and that they should contact him. Which they surely did. I had assumed after the conversation we had, they would bring him in to help me, not the other way around. My mistake.
Now, a few months later, friend (and new boss) is doing a great job, my workload has decreased due to the extra manpower, and I get to work with a dude who I love like a brother. Things are easier.
But I feel so desperately betrayed. Like, I couldn’t have have done more for them and they couldn’t even give me the decency to interview me properly for that job. I’ve never been more certain that I am going nowhere at that company. It’s absolutely a dead end and I have no intention to do it forever.
Shit sucks, man.
Im married and I have a young son, I’d love to retrain and do something else, but I have financial responsibilities and can’t afford to change “career” right now. So I feel pretty stuck, and that, dear reader, is why I feel so sad about it.
Moral of the story, fuck work.