My coworker got promoted for doing the same work I got written up for last quarter

Had a chat with my manager yesterday about why Sarah got the team lead spot after "taking initiative" on cross-department projects. Meanwhile I got a formal warning 4 months ago for "overstepping boundaries" when I literally did the exact same thing. Asked for specifics and got some vague corporate BS. Anyone else notice how office rules just bend differently for certain people?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_sullivan3d ago

Honestly, I read somewhere that managers often confuse "initiative" with "visibility" depending on who's doing it. It's all about who they see as a team player versus a threat.

kai_chen23d ago

I heard a study from some business school said managers tend to reward people who make their own lives easier, not necessarily the people who do the best work. There's this one guy I used to work with who always stayed late to clean up the break room. The boss loved him, thought he was a real team player. But another guy who actually found a way to cut our material waste by 15%? Nobody heard about it because he just put the report in a shared folder and moved on. The first guy was visible, the second guy just did the work. That study basically said visibility gets you the pat on the back, not the real initiative.

torres.blair3d ago

Totally agree @kai_chen2, I saw the same thing happen at my old job with two coworkers!