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A second post
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So this post pretty well makes this blog longer than most of the other ones I've ever messed with.
So, what's happening with the Thig... I pulled vacation time for December 27-Jan 3 to return to my family's farm in Florida to celebrate the holidays; my schedule finally came out yesterday, and not only did they give me the vacation days I requested, they also gave me the day prior as my regular day off. Thus, when I get off work today at 5 pm, I won't go back in until January the 4th.
This is good, as I am rapidly growing more and more and more disillusioned with my job. Of course, the only hits I get on Monster.com are from friggin' insurance companies and the like; a job search at this time of year is an utter waste of time.
My observation is that, since I applied and interviewed to take a promotion that would have had me surpassing my then-supervisor, I have been getting the cold shoulder from the entire management team. Where I once was chatty and chummy and friendly with all of the managers (most especially my own), those same managers with whom I once had a very congenial relationship now will not even speak to me in response when I greet them.
You know, since that interview, my morale has gone down. My interest in my job has declined. The investment I am making in terms of an ongoing emotional involvement in the goings-on of the business has degraded. My productivity is down. I admit all that. I offer a qualifier, though.
Maybe I am being held responsible for mistakes made by others.
Perhaps, after the interview and then the announcement, I was a little put out. Upset. Even offended. Perhaps I was even looking down at myself for being an idealistic fool and passing up the opportunity to apply for another promotion opportunity (Plan B) in the interim on the stated grounds that I was holding out for the first (Plan A).
The situation could be compounded by the fact that the supervisor I applied to surpass had been told six weeks earlier, in front of the entire team, that his job performance was so painfully sub-par that not only his role as supervisor, but his job altogether, was in jeopardy. Perhaps the message they gave by promoting him over me was that, no matter how bad his performance was, it was better than mine; perhaps I was and still am questioning my role in the company.
The situation could also be made worse by the fact that the individual that got the Plan B job had only recently been re-hired after having quit the company - burned his uniforms and the whole nine yards, if you believe the reports made by his off-hours friends.
Maybe my morale is even further degraded by the fact that this Plan B individual has since had so many medical problems of such severity that his usefulness in the Plan B job is not only compromised, but nullified: it's an outside technician position requiring the operation of a company car, and his medical statement bars him from driving. Or from looking at a computer screen for extended periods of time. Or from being in any environment that provides large numbers of sensory input, like, for example, a retail location, especially at this, the busiest time of year, the holiday season.
I am certainly not without fault; it is my responsibility as an employee to put my most promotable foot forward every minute of every day at work. It is my job to do the best that I can, regardless of what disappointments I may be feeling. I can only expect to be promoted if the company can expect my bad days to be my off days, and no more. I grant all that, and if my job performance is not good enough to justify my being promoted, then I shouldn't expect to be promoted. Even the simplest things are suffering; my company's web boards where we network and share solutions and strengthen our bonds as coworkers in a big family haven't seen me log in in over a month. All the tangibles show that I'm no longer supervisory material. It's that simple... or is it?
When problems arise, who do my coworkers go to, looking for a solution? When angry customers come to the department demanding a manager to yell at, who takes the brunt of those verbal assaults? When a confusing situation arises, and the associates in other departments need a creative interface solution, to whom do they turn? When the poop hits the proverbial fan, people, who is always the guy with all the toilet paper?
It's neither Plan A guy nor Plan B guy, that much I can assure you of.
There is a dim light at the end of the tunnel, though. Plan A guy vacated a position in his rise, and I am in the running for that position. That position will be announced after the Holidays are over. I might get it.
But think about it: Do I even want that position? My worth in the company has already been shown to be substantially less than I once thought. What is it that makes me believe even for a minute that, were I to receive that promotion, I would be able to make any improvements in this already-soiled department? I'd be going into the position as a lame duck; any process improvements I might affect have already had their wings clipped by the simple fact that they weren't given flight the first time I presented them.
Imagine this scene. A young man enters the jousting faire wherein the prize is the crown. He knows he is the rightful heir to the throne, and he knows he is capable of beating whomever he might have to fight. The entrenched but unpopular baron, though, wins some internecine portion of the faire, and takes up the throne, awarded by an absentee emperor. The popular favorite, the confident young man, loses.
Would the proud, confident young man then be interested in the barony, knowing that, for as long as the old baron chooses to sit upon the throne, the confident young man would always be in the old baron's shadow and subject to the whims of his vainglorious conqueror? Or, would the now-broken and insulted young man settle for whatever he could get and take the barony, hoping one day to simply outlast the former baron and take the crown he was rightful heir to in the first place?
All this allegory assumes, of course, that the (apparently OVER-)confident young man doesn't get put in the stocks and have tomatoes thrown at him until he begs for exile.
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