At my company, if you do good work, you will never be promoted.
Management does not want competition for future management jobs and if you are promoted, who will do the work they claim they did?
It’s called the “Peter Principle”
You rise to the level of your incompetence.................
Why would one work in such a place?
Sounds like the guy in the next cubicle there might be Dilbert.
How evil is your Human Resources dir3ctor?
https://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=Catbert
Work flows to the competent.
Never exhibit great competency doing work you don’t like to do.
I have faced this myself also. You are not supposed to make yourself look good, you are are supposed to make them look good.
And not only management... But from fellow employees if you come in and make them look bad with your work ethics and productivity. Because it forces them to do the same and most just want to do only the bare minimum to keep the position.
At my company they promote the best so that the best spend all their time managing schedules and budgets which are ever-expanding due to having to fix all the mistakes made by the incompetents remaining at the bottom of the food chain.
That has been the way of the world since time began.
People climb the ladder then cut off the rungs beneath them.
I get it. Some of my mentorees were promoted above me. I took it as a compliment. However, I was also “frozen out” very quickly for two reasons.
1. They had no one to replace me with
2. I was a threat. The two I trained who made it up were competent and hard working. That is a direct threat to those who are not.
Promotions are as much about the social aspect as the merit. Something I wish I was taught early on.
Now, it is about what color of skin you have and where you pee. Which is a nice way of protecting those on the top from being challenged.
“At my company, if you do good work, you will never be promoted....”
The company from which I retired many years ago was completely opposite. I should say it was before the union came in changed it all for the wage earners. The salaried continued being promoted and rewarded for good work. It was a good company.
Smart, creative and energetic people make their lethargic, hyper cautious and lethargic bosses look bad. Promoting them puts these bright workers one step closer to being their bosses boss. The concept of merit gets a lot of lip service but as you point out, there are reasons why talent and effort are not properly rewarded.
And then of course there is the problem of discrimination against motivated whites who have the drive to advance but are not allowed to because of wokeness.