“Today Is My Last Day, I’m Going Home”: Man Quits When Promotion Goes To Less-Skilled Hire
Have you ever heard the quote “winners never quit & quitters never win”? In this essay, I’ll explain why it’s nonsense, with the help of today’s story.
Okay, okay, this won’t be an essay (sorry, I know!), but more and more people are seeing that quitting is the way to go a lot of the time, especially if you’re being undervalued.
Speaking of undervalued, the poster of this story decided to quit on the spot when he was the perfect fit for a position but his manager decided to hire someone with totally unrelated experience.
More info: Reddit
Being skipped over for a promotion is a horrible feeling, especially if someone less qualified than you gets chosen
Image credits: StockSnap (not the actual image)
The poster went online to complain about how he was replaced with an underqualified employee despite performing really well in the position
Image credits: u/ImBambiB***h
Image credits: Sora Shimazaki (not the actual image)
4 months after being a temporary sales manager, he was replaced by someone with zero sales experience and only some leadership skills from their time in the military
Image credits: u/ImBambiB***h
Image credits: Sora Shimazaki (not the actual image)
The guy quit on the spot, telling the general manager that he quit because he was replaced with someone way less qualified
Image credits: u/ImBambiB***h
In the end, the new hire was fired a year later, and when the general manager reached out to the poster, he was already comfortably working at a new job
The poster was a guy working in business-to-business (B2B) sales, having the best sales numbers, training people, and helping them get their numbers up as well.
When a sales manager was fired, the original poster (OP) took over her position for 4 months, having the business perform very well during that time.
Thinking they could just get the job based on their good performance, the OP applied for the position, but the general manager decided to hire someone else, with little to no experience in sales.
This, naturally, upset the poster, with him quitting on the spot, not even giving a 2-week notice, ignoring the fact that he would have gotten two weeks of pay, but at that point they were too upset to care.
According to the comments, it appears that the vice president of the company wasn’t quite in the loop about the hiring, leading to OP’s replacement getting fired about a year later. Apparently, the VP even reached out to OP at that time, seemingly offering them a position, but he was already happy at a new job.
The poster mentioned several times that the general manager had a liking of the military, which isn’t a bad thing, but the new hire did not have pretty much any relevant experience, besides leadership skills gained in the military.
Another commenter indicated that when hiring veterans, companies may be getting tax breaks because of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) – a federal hiring incentive, providing tax credit up to $9.6k for hires from a variety of backgrounds, including military vets, partially explaining the unqualified hire.
Image credits: Bram Naus (not the actual image)
There could be many reasons why someone is being held back from a promotion. Besides toxic management and bosses making uninformed decisions, such as the one in OP’s story, there are potential reasons on both sides why you may not be getting promoted.
NetWerk has got some good tips for people wondering what’s the catch with them not getting promoted even if they’re performing well.
A sad reason may be that you’re not recognized very well at work, with you skipping work parties or team building activities, which may seem like a good idea in the short term, but if you want to have better chances at being promoted you should strive to improve your visibility at work.
If you’re too humble at work, minimizing your achievements and never taking credit for your work, you also aren’t doing yourself any favors.
Funnily enough, if you’re performing too well, your boss or coworkers may feel threatened by you, and that’s the reason you’re being held back, at which point you could look for recognition from a different department or in another company,
Considering all of this, BetterUp says that if you’ve spent about 1-2 years at your current job and already know all of the ins-and-outs, are getting bored and tired of it, and aren’t getting promoted on top of all of that – you shouldn’t be a clinger.
If you feel like you’re stagnating, you’re not learning anything and others are being picked for promotions instead of you, it’s probably high time to leave and find a place where you’ll be valued appropriately and can grow at the same time.
The post was widely approved by the antiwork community, with 7.9k upvotes and a 98% upvote ratio. Among the 376 comments, lots of people supported the poster, saying that not being loyal to your job is the way to go, because they rarely reciprocate with loyalty. Share your own stories in the comments down below!
The community supported the poster, saying that they completely understand the poster losing their loyalty towards companies
Military "leaders" are overrated because in the military, they can send somebody to prison for not following orders. Good luck in the private world. Without the threat of prison for insubordination, leadership requires a lot more finesse.
There is, of course, the threat of firing or demotion for insubordination in the private world.
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Ahhh I relate to this so much (being looked over multiple times after being an interim). I'm sure they wanted to keep the OP in their position because they were so dang good but they didn't want to pay them. Hire an unqualified person for no money and have OP do double the work for the same amount..
Well, not sure what they expected to happen. He is a human being with feelings and pride. They just treated him like his contributions were nothing. Been there, done that, but didn’t have the guts to walk away. That time. Just recently I started a new job, was doing really well with little training and virtually no support (I worked alone in a satellite office), and the owner woman decides to talk to me like I was an idiot the one day she stops by over some perceived infraction. I’m a 54 year-old woman with over 30 years of experience and a university degree. No one should be treated like that. I knew in that moment there was no talking to her and our relationship was over. She tried to backtrack - “What can I give you to make this it a negative experience?” I said I was okay and adaptable but wanted to say get out of my face. I learned to know what my worth was and what I will and will not put up with, and quit the next day.
Military "leaders" are overrated because in the military, they can send somebody to prison for not following orders. Good luck in the private world. Without the threat of prison for insubordination, leadership requires a lot more finesse.
There is, of course, the threat of firing or demotion for insubordination in the private world.
Load More Replies... Ahhh I relate to this so much (being looked over multiple times after being an interim). I'm sure they wanted to keep the OP in their position because they were so dang good but they didn't want to pay them. Hire an unqualified person for no money and have OP do double the work for the same amount..
Well, not sure what they expected to happen. He is a human being with feelings and pride. They just treated him like his contributions were nothing. Been there, done that, but didn’t have the guts to walk away. That time. Just recently I started a new job, was doing really well with little training and virtually no support (I worked alone in a satellite office), and the owner woman decides to talk to me like I was an idiot the one day she stops by over some perceived infraction. I’m a 54 year-old woman with over 30 years of experience and a university degree. No one should be treated like that. I knew in that moment there was no talking to her and our relationship was over. She tried to backtrack - “What can I give you to make this it a negative experience?” I said I was okay and adaptable but wanted to say get out of my face. I learned to know what my worth was and what I will and will not put up with, and quit the next day.
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