You did the right thing. Too many young adults today come into the workplace thinking the job owes them when in reality they should be striving to do their best for the company.
Don’t feel bad at all. She sounds like she needs a wake-up call, and pronto.
First, you did the right thing.
Second, when she doesn’t get the job you could pull her aside and tell her a) I told you what you needed to do to get the job and b) you didn’t do it. Explain to her that senority != promotion. You may also want to tell her, in a very careful way, that if you backed her up for the job while she acted they way she did during the tryout it could harm your position.
Last, if she thinks you are a bitch be thankful. She doesn’t deserve a friend like you. All she would do is use you for whatever she could get.
Slee
I can’t imagine how a person like that even gets the opportunity to be promoted at all. She dresses inappropriately; she was told that if given the opportunity of a promotion that her performance would have to get a lot better (hello? she should have ALREADY been performing at the higher level); and she has a history of becoming more and more difficult to work with, sulky, etc. How on earth could anyone possibly think she should be given a better job?
Wait, I just re-read the thread: her performance has been sub-par for a year?! And yet she’s in line for a promotion? I really am working in the wrong industry.
You did the right thing. Think of it this way… if you had an employee who did a job, and you asked them to take another employee for a test-run and they reported back “yeah they did great, give them the job” and so you did… and then it turns out the person totally sucked… wouldn’t you feel that the first person had sort of screwed you over? You did the right thing for your company, and as an employee of that company, that is your obligation.
You definately are **missbunny[B/], especially if these are the kind of focus groups that you get goodies out of… (Although admittedly those chips we got that one time were a bit much.)
And back to the topic at hand:
Yes, you did the right thing: she was warned (repeatedly if I read things right) about appropriate behavior and dress, been there long enough to realize what the job entails, and given a chance that she really shouldn’t have been given to begin with. Why on earth give someone a chance like that when their performace has been deteriorating, unless you’re looking for a good solid reason to get rid of them? (I’m not saying that alice-in-wonderland had anything to do with that last line of reasoning, just that it’s something I’ve seen happen.)
Looks like the chick in question needs to grow up quickly, and realize that jobs and promotions aren’t going to fall at her feet, begging her to take them unless she deserves them. She’ll probably be even more sulky after all of this to boot. :rolleyes:
<< Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts… >>
Ack. I really should preview… 
*slinks off to type out 10,000 times: I shall always test code before putting it into production. *
Have you considered this person may have taken advantage of you because you treated her as a friend? Also, I applaud you for making the harder choice and not letting her get away with bad performance.
Grrr…I’m stuck in a shitty job where I have to take time out because it causes me panic attacks, and people like this get opportunities I’d kill for-and they throw them away.
Don’t feel bad-YOU didn’t do anything. SHE is responsible for her own behavior.
I’m in a kinda-similar-weird position. I have no supervisory powers at all, make no hiring or firing decisions, but am responsible for training all new employees on our computer systems.
Some folks make me fairly weep with gratitude: I start to explain to them the relationship between two different tables in our database, and they’ll say, “aha! so you mean that if I don’t store the screen with the foreign key, it won’t record a relationship between my two records!” I want to fall to my knees and kiss their hands.
And other new employees? One of them told me that because she’d thought she might get a job working with computers, she’d avoided computers for the past three years so that she wouldn’t have to unlearn anything. She’s phenomenally stupid.
Do I report to the supervisors when an employee Doesn’t Get It? Even if it means it might cost them their job?
Oh yeah. I sometimes feel a little guilty about it: I know that some people are smart in ways that don’t at all include computers. On the other hand, if they can’t handle their job, that can snowball into a big problem. And since I work at an animal shelter, and since we make life-or-death decisions every day based on our records, a big problem can be really big.
It sucks to give a bad report on someone, especially when you’re not being paid a supervisor’s wages to do the hiring and firing. But in the long run, it does no one a service to give false reports.
Consider that since this one assistant won’t be promoted, the one who actually does work hard may have a chance at a deserved promotion.
Daniel
I actually talked to the Operations Manager about this again today and again commented about how well the second assistant is doing.
Interestingly, the Operations Manager commented that she had never had any intention of promoting the first assistant, but felt that she had to give her the chance to fall on her face, just because she’s been with the company for a long time. This actually made me feel better because the negative report was expected.
The OM was very pleased to hear about assistant #2, however, so I think the next time an opportunity presents itself, assistant #2 will be up for the job.
So for all you assistants in the world - yes, sometimes there is justice. 
Al - Wicked-Coordinator-of-the-West.