I applied for an internal position at my company. It would bounce me up 2 spots in job title and 1 grade in pay. It is a job that I would enjoy, no doubt. There would be a 70 mile roundtrip commute where I am now only having to travel 12 miles roundtrip.
Here is the bad part. A coworker of mine also applied for the job. He is the ONLY person that I have ever had to tell off/yell at before at any job. I absolutely cannot stand this person, yet I am now faced with the prospect of having to work side by side with him. The biggest issue I have with him is incompetency. He just isn’t any good at what we do and I constantly have to fix his mistakes.
So, today I get the call from the HR rep and it looks like they are going to make an offer. I haven’t seen the money yet or if they are even going to let me jump 2 spots in job title. However in the event that they meet my salary requirements and give me the title I want; I still have to deal with the issue that the coworker I cannot stand is gonna follow me to this new job.
I have thought about this a lot over the past month but I cannot decide if I want to endure someone I cannot stand just because of my career aspirations.
BTW it is almost 100% certain they are gonna place my coworker in this job too. The good thing though is I will still have a job if I decline.
Please someone give me some help, I will be forever grateful.
Unless you are supernaturally lucky, there will always be somebody who pisses you off at work. If this is a good career move, go for it. Your co-worker may suck badly enough at it that he gets demoted for incompetency.
Thanks Ethilrist. That is so true about somebody who pisses you off at work. The offer put a lot of checks in the plus column and I am gonna go for it.
Maybe you can view this as the ultimate psychological challenge – developing your “working-with-morons” skills.
Odds are, if you can handle a stint with a difficult, incompetent co-worker, you’ll be moving upward in the future, bringing along some well-developed tolerance and “people” lessons, and leaving him behind.
It would be a shame to let this guy keep you from advancing. Worse yet, if he moves ahead of you, you may wind up having to work for him to advance in the future.
Go for it. Opportunities opportunities don’t come along every day. If you really can’t stand it after a few months, you can move to a similar position at a different company. You resume will forever have the last job title and the fact that you were promoted on it.
I SOOOO feel your pain. I work with the most worthless human being I’ve ever met, and just being around him makes me want to scream like a lunatic, which I did once…and our boss said I was justified.
One suggestion, if there is a way to document his incompentence, do it.
~J
~still hoping my coworker will be fired~
~Hey, it could happen! He’s out of personal time for the YEAR already!~
Everyone has given you great advice. This is work, not a social situation - you will get ahead precisely because you choose to not let personalities and emotions get in the way and focus on delivering results. And partnering with or using the skills of anyone, whether they are incompetant in other ways or not.
This is just another of countless tests you will be put through as part of doing well. Just go out and stay focused on what is important…