get promoted

I’m already promotable but getting promoted is based on apoint system… Our points are 790never and I have 720 right now. The only area I can add points in right now is civilian education, and that’s one of my other goals. SO here I go…

The job I wanted to get promoted in was sort of dead-end, and the people were becoming increasingly awful… so I got a new job with better pay instead!

About 6 weeks ago my boss suggested I go for a promotion. I whimped out and didn’t go for it. However the same job will be coming up in September 09. I’m going to spend the next few months developing myself, so when it comes up again I will feel confident in applying for it.

In our meeting just now, my supervisor told me she needed to apologize for a mistake that had awakened her in the middle of the night – putting down the wrong job title & classification for me. She explained that she’d gotten mixed up because the spreadsheet she had been sent didn’t include classifications, just salaries, & she had set my salary at a senior level back when I was hired. She is still working on getting me a promotion – this is a project of hers, not just mine. And she had nothing but praise for the quality of my work.

So I’m slightly disappointed but not at all surprised. I do feel appreciated/valued, & hopefully next year, as the economy improves, there will be a promotion & a bit of a raise as well!

My supervisor just gave me my annual evaluation form, & on my job title she has added “senior”! Does this mean that at my meeting with her tomorrow she’ll be letting me know that I’m being promoted??! Or did she do this absent-mindedly because a number of the other editors she supervises (who have been here much longer than I) are senior & she was filling out all our forms at once?

I won’t bring it up with her till tomorrow, but I’ll post here so my 43T pals can be on tenterhooks with me! :-)

Soon I’ll be starting the editing of my assigned sections of the 16th ed. of the big orange editors’ bible, our top-selling classic publication. I get to edit the mongo chapter on grammar, because I’m “the only one of us who likes grammar.” (I also have punctuation, which I love, & copyrights/permissions, which it will be good to learn more about.) This assignment feels like a promotion in itself – it’s fun to think back on my first editing job, where I became familiar with the orange tome, & to imagine how proud I would have felt if I’d been told that one day I would be one of its editors!

Actual job-title change or supervisor error? Tune in tomorrow to find out! Heh.

I have just got a pay rise not huge but can’t complain. I know my lack of confidence really lets me down not my ability

Not going to happen :( Or at least not for another year and a half. I’m not sure I want to wait that long…

I’m thinking I should leave here while I still look good on paper. I’m getting worried about having to explain why I have been working for the same company for 3 years and am still entry level.

Feb, ‘09. Two exceeds and one mets. Still needs improvement, but it’s closer than ever. Hope I have time a good case until May.

this is on hold for the time being. Our company isn’t suffering quite as much from the economic crisis as others are – or perhaps it’s simply that we’re buffered by the larger institution. For the time being, though, our belt-tightening includes a hiring & wage freeze. If my supervisor did find some way to justify promoting me, I’m sure it would not involve a pay raise!

I am working to reduce expenses associated with my own work, & in the last week I avoided FedEx charges by sending material to authors electronically – a departure from normal practice here. Just now I had a chance to tell my supervisor about it, & she is enthusiastic about recommending this to other editors in the department. So I’m doing my bit.

The main point right now is to be indispensable so that I don’t LOSE my job.

When I announced my intentions to move up the food chain everyone was really supportive. My boss, and my would-be peer group, all seemed enthusiastic. I started to go to more meetings, picked up more clients and generally worked my butt off.
Then my review comes around…and months go by and nothing happens. Finally, 5 months late, my review happens. And its negative??? I get a brief nod that my clients are happy, but really I should make sure the coffee is always stocked. “can’t let the little things slip.”
I love my job, but this weird behavior leaves me wondering: is it my up coming maternity leave? Has my career just washed up on the shoals of rampant sexism?