Not to mention pissing off the understudy!!
I wouldn’t be surprised if #2 was involved, but it’s more likely probably just ridiculous favoritism. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. I feel like she might be the kind of person who charms other people into bailing her out of tough situations, so I’ll be watching out for that.
We don’t have shareholders, and the person who is probably mostly responsible for this decision is leaving soon anyway. She’s not fresh out of college, but not too far into her career. I did hear that she has about six months of experience with a job similar to the one the understudy has, which makes me wonder why she left that job so quickly. 
It’s not a great situation! Also other people are unhappy for the understudy, who works very hard and really deserved the promotion. Some people I talked to are stunned and bewildered. It’s very bizarre, and it will be worse when she moves in to the director’s office. 
I’m reminded of the joke:
You’re not here for the hunting, are you?
Our HR, which was pretty reasonable my first few years at this company, has definitely gone down the “Lets save a few dollars to show the CEO how financially responsible we are while annoying every employee at the same time” road.
Since Covid started, they’ve had a program where you could get reimbursed for up to $200 of items to support working from home. It was great, I used it to buy a new monitor one year, used it towards a new chair another year, etc. You just bought what you wanted, submitted a receipt, and got reimbursed. They interpreted “support working from home” very widely as well, which was nice. Note that right now we’re on a hybrid work schedule, and the company has more employees than it does desks to put them at, so they absolutely depend on people continuing to work from home.
For 2025, they announced “Great changes!” to the program. It’s no longer a reimbursement, instead, they give you 200 dollars/points to use on the “Awards” website, where they issue points for things like service anniversaries, patents applications, etc. There’s a huge list of mostly useless and overpriced stuff you can buy, but you can also buy gift cards, including amazon gift cards, which I’m sure 99% of people do. So no big deal, getting $200 of Amazon credit is perfectly fine.
But today, when the $200 rolled out, they also announced they’re combining this with the “Wellness” program. Which means you can only spend that $200 on a very limited list of items, and, of course, it doesn’t include Amazon gift cards. So the program is utterly useless to me. I’m sure the company is getting some kickback from the bullshit “awards” company/website they’re contracting with, but frankly, I would have far preferred keeping the program as is and dropping the amount to $150 instead of giving me 200 “points” I have no desire to use.
I earn roughly 8 hours of vacation leave every 2-week pay period, but stop earning it if I accumulate 200 total hours.
My department is staffed by two people (pre-pandemic, it was 4 plus a part-timer). And by the nature of part of the work (presenting several public / school group programs in a museum 5 days a week), if one of us takes off, the other one has to take up the slack without any backup. Which means that both of us are constantly bumping up against the 200 hour ceiling.
So my strategy has been, get the work done, and clock out a little early when I can, maybe take a half day here and there.
And I’ve been told that the result of me not wanting to constantly saddle my coworker with too much solo work, is that certain folks in upper management say, oh look, Drew can get the job done in 35 hours a week? I guess his department doesn’t need any more staff.
Sounds like my company’s safety award program…unless you’re working outside of the administrative building (that is, in one of the production areas where you’re exposed to potentially hazardous situations), you’re not going to rack up enough hazard observations to earn an award from the good catalog. Instead, as a token award for the whole company completing a safe year, you’re offered a limited selection of gear featuring the company logo and cheap Bluetooth items. Yay.
Gonna quote myself here to point out my own sloppy wording. I get the essential work done - there’s always more on my plate that could get done, which either doesn’t happen, happens late, or just isn’t done as well as I’d like.
So our office holds hearings and issues decisions. Not every case goes right to decision-writing immediately following the hearing. Oftentimes, the file is held open to obtain additional info - which might take a couple of months.
December 6, they changed some policy WRT some questions that have to be asked during every hearing. This change came out of nowhere. We started asking those questions right away, but no hearing held before 12/6 had those questions asked. The policy statement said it was effective for all DECISIONS ISSUED after 1/5/25.
You can guess the problem. Hell, my 9-year old grandkid could see the problem. Now there is a mad rush to get decisions issued in every case that was heard before 12/6. At a time of year that almost everyone is taking time off. And, of course, they aren’t all going to get done - which will necessitate additional effort later on.
Meanwhile, none of this would’ve been an issue if they had simply said it applies to all cases in which THE HEARING WAS HELD after 1/5…
Just astounding competence at the top! Of course, there is no explanation of who made the decisions and why. From my perspective, the only rationale response is to care even less, and drop the quality of my work even more…
My boss got promoted (he deserved it) and left a vacancy for his position. I don’t really want to be a manager but I don’t want to work for any of the people who would likely get it if I don’t. So I guess I will apply for the position. No guarantees but I have the most and most relevant experience for the position so it’s fairly likely I will get it. I hope I don’t regret this.
Good luck.
And if you get it, my condolences.
Follow up to the above. I emailed HR to ask why they made all these stupid changes to the program, and the reply was “The funds must be utilized as shown because we curated a Wellness catalog, which has been carefully selected to align with our wellness goals.”
In the course of searching for something to buy, I found that the “carefully selected” catalog included:
14 pet food dispensers
18 yoga mats
10 yoga foam rollers
15 bathroom scales
11 types of protein powder
17 muscle massage tools
5 hoverboards
Chipotle gift cards
Yeah, carefully selected alright.
We used to have a wellness rewards program where we could get gift cards for legitimate things (including Amazon). I paid for most of a very nice Kitchenaid stand mixer with those rewards. Of course they quit doing that program. 
I named my mixer Sir Mix-A-Lot.
I like big bundts and I cannot lie.
We own a large clock.
We have never wanted a large clock, we don’t look at the large clock. When it’s time to set the clocks an hour back, we forget the large clock.
But it was the least tacky thing in the “Celebrating Your 25 Wonderful Years of Service!” catalog…
OK, I totally misread your post at first. I thought the large clock was at work and everyone ignored it. Then someone put a sign next to it after 25 years of service.
I would love to see this catalog! Most people would probably rather have the money instead of a tacky award (except for maybe this one).
Have you been spying on me?! 
I assume AT&T still does an awards catalog - when I left, it was a good mixture of company branded doodads (watches, pendants, pens, etc) and somewhat useful products (I’d been there a long time, I ended up with an IPad). At least for me, no cash option meant I actually ended up with something I’ve ended up using, whereas money would have been wasted (my access to hookers and blow has completely dried up so Odin knows what I would have spent it on).
When my father had been with IBM for twenty years, he got to choose a gift from a catalog. He chose a brass ship’s clock and barometer. It’s still on his mantle and working nearly forty years later.
In 2021 my company sent me a link to a catalog on my 25th year anniversary. Looked like a bunch of junk to me. I sent the link to my daughter and told her to pick out a gift for herself.
Related gripe: I retired from there last year, after working there for 28 years. A lot of things bugged me about the place, but this one really struck a nerve: during those 28 years, I took one sick day. One. And I was really sick on that day. Meanwhile, a guy I supervised averaged about 120 sick hours a year. He knew the system very well, and would charge those hours in a way that wouldn’t require a doctor’s note. I brought this up to management, and told them I highly suspect he is abusing sick time. (He was also a very dishonest person in general. He couldn’t tell the truth if his life depended on it.) They said there was nothing they could do. I told management that I should do the same; I would love to have three more weeks of vacation a year. They shrugged it off. Goes to show that honesty does not pay.
I have the exact same clock/barometer from IBM (but not from 40 years ago!). It was for 25 years with the company; they may not have many people left nowadays who have worked there long enough to qualify. Mine is similar to:
My wife had a similiar longevity prize catalog from her company with lots of branded crystal (which she hates) and jewelry (ditto). She let me pick out her prize: a gemstone globe, like this:
Both items are on display in our living room.
In either case, I don’t think those are the prices that the company actually paid. Of course we probably also had to pay some taxes too!