According to his Reddit post, he had 15 years of automotive experience. He started at a global company as a product manager with one understanding: a promotion to head of the department was coming, and it was coming soon. What he didn’t know was that “soon” in this company meant never, at least for him.
Here’s a story from a 48-year-old man in Europe on Reddit that hits close to home if you have ever put everything you have into a job and watched someone walk through the door and straight into the role you were promised. It's about broken promises, ideas he says were presented without credit, a calculated response and ten years of quietly wondering if he was wrong.
The promotion that never was
He joined the firm, believing that a leadership role was only weeks away. He gave it four months and then pushed his director for an update. This answer surprised him. He was told he was doing too well; management wanted him to stay exactly where he was and bring in an outside hire for the department head role.
He was furious. He went to the other managers, and they gave him an uncomfortable truth. According to him, the other managers said that’s just how things worked there. The company’s culture, they explained, was deliberately designed to keep high performers in their lanes and to allow external candidates to be put in positions of power over them.
A likable boss who couldn't do the job
The new head of department seemed promising at first. The two men socialized and ate together and got along well. But right from the first day on the real job, it was clear the new boss was out of his depth. With two major product launches coming up, every step of the process showed the same problem: the man was just not familiar with the business.
