So You Say You Want to be Promoted?

I had a conversation with Donny over the weekend. It seems that he has decided that he wants to join the management team of a certain retailer that we don't need to mention by name. Donny has been with the company for about 18 months and thinks he has what it takes to join the salaried ranks. He also wants to move up, he could see himself as a store manager one day. So, Donny made his feelings known. At each of the last two evaluations that he received, he expressed a desire to move up in the company. How was that request met? For starters, even though Donny has made sure he is cross trained in virtually every department, he only received a "meets" on his last evaluation. His Assistant Manager told him that she was strongly urged not to give out "exceeds" due to budget restraints. When he asked if that would affect his desire to move up with the company, he was told no- it has no bearing on that whatsoever. Guess what? It does have a bearing on the chances of going into the management program and those chances are much smaller now because of his mediocre evaluation. So what can he do about it? In the words of the assistant manager with whom he spoke about it-jack squat. It seems that the assistant clued him in on a few things that he was unaware of. First of all, he did not realize that many of the tasks he performs on any given day are suppose to be done by someone else. Someone who is salaried and makes more money than him. Second, many of the things that he has been asked to do-and done- are so out of his job description as to be laughable. And the third reason he was told that he will not see the comfortable chair side of the management program is because he is too good to be replaced! Not too good to give an exceeds to, but he never misses work, never hesitates to go somewhere else in the store, and never needs more than minimal supervision. If Walmart could clone this guy, they'd be shipping him out of DC's any day now. So Donnie is in a quandary. If he keeps doing this well, perhaps they will finally reward him for all of his hard work. On the other hand, if he keeps making it this easy for his assistant manager, why would they ever want him to go? And anyone who has ever put on a blue vest knows that the easiest thing for the assistant manager is always the right answer. What should he do? I don't have a good answer for him. If the job market is better in his area of the world than it is in the rest of ours, I would think that he should start looking around. Otherwise, he better cross his fingers that a TARGET store comes into the area. He can take his knowledge and work ethic there and perhaps be appreciated. If that happens, I'm thinking that he'll thank me later.