I was recently told that after two and a half years of temping, I’m finally being hired. I am also getting a new job. My boss told me the paperwork would be going through in a few days, which it didn’t. There’s a bunch of us being hired, so that’s not the sucky part. I began the preliminary training and the new position had been announced. Then yesterday he calls me and tells me that he doesn’t know about the new job, because who’s going to do my old job?" For some reason, I would have thought he would have figured that out already. Silly me.
But is this a sure sign of advanced suckitude? Has Middle Managerial Suckosity reached a record high? Is the suckification of his existence a sure thing?
Sounds like your boss was too lazy/forgetful to put in a request for your replacement at the old job and would rather keep you there instead, much to your detriment…IF you want to move on and tackle the new job, call him out on it.
Much suckiness was duly noted on your situation. Good luck.
If your boss is so disorganized that he didn’t think about who would fill your shoes once you were hired permanently before he hired you on and gave you a new job, and now wants to retract the offer, I would imagine that he will screw you over again in the future, whether it’s on purpose or not. He sounds extremely absent-minded, and that can have some very negative effects in the workplace. For example, my husband was almost deported because someone in his office forgot to file his visa papers. That absent-mindedness could have cost my husbsand’s company thousands in legal fees to straighten out, or could have resulted in my husband’s deportation. The guy who made the mistake is still there, making the same mistakes and probably causing people a lot of worry and screwing them over, whether he means to or not.
If you really love what you do, stick it out. But if you don’t, you might consider asking to be transferred to a different department under a different boss (if that’s possible), or beginning a job search.
He may well suck…but he also may be seeing if you have given any thought to how your current duties will be covered when you switch positions. Do you have any suggestions for him? Maybe he’s thinking you’re too passive. It may be his responsibility to fill the new position, but if you’re staying in the same department, it would be good if you showed you were looking out for the good of the team.
Don’t accept this situation. You’ve made an agreement that you were getting the new position. The change has been announced and you started training. Though that might not be as binding as a paper contract, it is worth something.
I think he has LOSER written on his forehead. It is his responsibility to fill your old position, and if he renegs on the new job, he is untrustworthy altogether.
I will be answering to a different “team leader”, although I don’t know if that’s what they call them in the new company. I suppose if I asked for a transfer I would have thought about who’d fill my position, but he did it without even discussing it with me. He just came to me and told me I’d be doing a new job.
The new position is a step up in skills and responsibility and I could use a change. It’s not like I hate what I’m doing, but I tend to get bored and the new gig looks challenging.
While you’re obviously in the right here, it’s not a terrible idea to propose a compromise of some sort… offer to spend one day a week doing your old job for a few months, or something of that sort. (But don’t let yourself be dragged down a slippery slope back into doing it full time.)
When I moved into this job, I replaced a guy who went to work for a subsidiary. His transfer was held up three months until they found and hired me.
This may not be suckitude on his part. We are still doing the job of my new boss who got promoted a year later - we never got the headcount replaced. That isn’t his fault - he doesn’t approve headcount. And that may be what is happening here - everything was hunky dory - then he was told that he couldn’t get the sign off to replace you - now suddenly he can’t afford to have you leave - your req is approved. In a constrained hiring environment, a body at a desk is worth more than a potential body later that may never come.
Hmmm… I think I see what you mean. At my last job, I began there as a temporary administrative assistant. I had ALWAYS been an administrative assistant, and was pretty sure I was permanently typecast into that role. The only reason I agreed to work there as a full-time employee was because there was room for growth, and the chance for being promoted meant a lot to me and to my future earning potential. Not to mention, when I finally DID get promoted, I had a lot more duties and responsibilities and used my brain more.
Is there any way you could offer to help your boss find someone to fill the position? Perhaps you could offer to help him interview people and then train your replacement. That way, the replacement would know exactly what your boss wants from someone who has experience with him, and that’ll solve your boss’ problem of not having a replacement, plus you’ll look good for a) going the extra mile and training your replacement, making the transition as smooth as possible; and b) you’ll prove to your old boss and to your new team lead that you’re very responsible and can easily handle a leadership role.
I second the ‘it may not be his fault’ because the same thing is happening to me right now. I started my current job four months ago and LOVED it. I was told from the temp agency that I would go permanent after three months, as long as my performance was good. My performance was excellent - my boss was very happy with me, and he told me that he was taking steps to hire me. On Friday, June 26th, driving to my cousin’s wedding, I got a call from my temp agency saying “Congrats! You’re hired!”.
I came in the next week and mentioned it to my boss, to say thank you, and find out, no, I’m not really hired. Apparently, our CEO and VP are worried that when we implement new reporting software, my job will be made obselete (I write reports with Access and SQL queries), and they don’t want to hire me permanently if they don’t have a place for me.
So I’m still a temp. Right now, they’re training me to work in our medical verifying/billing department, which s good, but they still haven’t made me permanent. I’m starting to get a little frustrated, but I’m not mad at my boss - he keeps telling me if it were up to him, I’d be permanent by now.
However, some friends in an internet start-up have offered me a full-time position as a team leader for their resume-writing company (we have a huge promotion starting in September, which means we’ll be writing 500,000 resumes in about five months), with the potential to make 3 times weekly what I’m making now - and since we’re trying to buy a house, the money would come in handy. Plus, I’d get to work from home. So my plan is to see what happens in two months and take the working from home position if they still haven’t hired me.
I think sometimes companies seem to forget that there are real people behind these jobs - that’s what bothers me about my current job. I hope you hear something soon - it really, really sucks to wait.