For the past few months, my manager has been stringing me along about getting me promoted to a level that I am already performing at. I took this entry-level role as an entry point into the company with the anticipation that I could grow relatively easily and quickly. A few months ago, I started on the conversation with my manager that I am performing at a mid-career, senior level and would like to move into the next pay grade up.
This past week, I pushed on this topic some more, and she decided to sit with me in order to build a business case that she was going to present to the VP in her next 1:1. We spent a couple hours this week organizing our thoughts into a neat, deliverable package. Manager's 1:1 comes and goes, and there's no communication to me on how it went. I emailed and asked if the meeting had taken place, and my manager doesn't reply for some hours. Eventually she emails me, but doesn't specify any details about the 1:1 discussion. Instead, she tells me to put my bullet points into my performance review for future consideration. I ping her before end of day to ask how the meeting went. About 30 mins later, she finally responds and tells me that she didn't discuss this with the VP as we had talked about.
I was quite livid at this point, because this is something we had discussed multiple times during the week and she made it seem like it was a priority for her. But worse, she avoided telling me that it didn't happen. So, I drafted an email to my manager, Ccing the VP, explaining how grateful I was of this opportunity to talk about this, how I understood that things came up that precluded this discussion in her 1:1, and how I'd really like the opportunity to discuss the topic with my manager and the VP. This was sent Friday, no word as of today. But the experience made me very leery of trusting my manager to advocate on my behalf. I wouldn't be surprised if she's just been telling me things to satisfy me, but hasn't at all been discussing this with anyone up the chain.
Point being, I could have voiced my displeasure with her, but instead took the high road and took the reins of my destiny into my own hands. Nobody will advocate for you as hard as you will advocate for yourself. And while I had respected my manager up to this point, this is an important lesson that these people you work with are not your friends, not your family, not your allies. They are all looking out for themselves, and so should you.