Advancement at the expense of others.....
 

A situation at work made me think of this, and I thought it'd make a good topic of conversation here.

What if you knew you were going to be advanced at the expense of someone else? That is, what if you knew that management was going to either transfer or otherwise "remove" a person to make room for you? How would you react, and what factors would influence how you feel?

I wouldn't react much. I would take the advancement and the paycheck.

I'm not really much on worrying about co-workers feelings because in the end I know that a corporation is a corporation. They don't really care about anything but the bottom line.

...like crabs in a barrel.

What...lost? Trapped? Hopeless? Confused? :confused:

There's a reason that someone is being "removed", and a position opening up, and I highly doubt that it's just to make room for you. There are other issues at play, and one should not 'feel bad" for moving into a position that thay are qualified for, and "someone else" clearly was not. Unless, of course, you set the "someone else" up to take a fall, just so that you could move into their position once the dust settles. Barring that, it's life, and that's the way that it's played.

Stepping on each other to get to the top, maybe?

...

Dunno. Depends on the job, really.

Military? Not so much. You get promoted for being a stud with sharp duds and answering trivia questions while in a horrible green polyester suit.

Civvie? Suck enough dick and you'll go far.

I'd probably feel some guilt. Although I would know, rationally, that I should not feel that guilt, I would still have some.

They aren't just making room for you. There are reasons that the other person is on their way out.

I won't think twice of it. Maybe I'm jaded and conditioned to accept it now, but I don't have any remorse for such things at all.

I've had many friends let go, furloughed, laid off, sacked, made redundant,, whatever you'd like to call it. I've been threatened and had it happened to several times already. So what, it's part of the game. It's not personal, it's business.

Nah. I'm happy where I am and I don't like being responsible for ruining someone's life.

Seeing as how you are a VP (I'm an owner as well), I fail to see how you are ruining someone's life. Sure, that person may have to look for another job, but if the company is being held back by someone or can perform better, aren't you ruining more than one life by keeping that person on board??

Business is business.. that's life. For me I've never mixed friendships etc with it and my life has been alot easier that way.

I'd need to know why the other person was being let go. If it was because they weren't performing or something, then that'd be OK. If it was because I can do their job better than they can, that's OK too.

Any other reason would make me feel guilty. I'm a firm believer that shit like that will come back to bite you in the ass.

just remember if they "made room" for someone else such as yourself, they can "make room" for someone below you if you don't perform as well as they'd like.

The larger the company, the less this matters. There are no magic numbers that I can see, but there becomes a point where you're always taking someone else's job.

Here's something to think about - unless you are creating your own company from the bottom up, you are always taking someone else's job. It may have been a job that they did in conjunction with someone else, but it was a job that was done nonetheless. That seems to be universal regardless of the industry.

If someone else is not doing their job well or is not competent, it is the manager's job to find someone to is competent and do the job well. Feel bad all you want, but I've always found that people rise to the level of their competency. When they get beyond it, they tend to float back down to the levels where they can perform well.

As an aside, as a salesmen, I always want to be in exactly this position. If I can find a competitor who isn't doing particularly well, I can generally insert myself there and replace them. It isn't personal; it's business.

I once attended a lecture for some of the top young professionals in my field, and the lecturer listed a company organisation chart, and invited people to imagine that they were running one of the smaller departments in the business.

He then invited people to point out on the chart who was most likely to help their career advancement.

After about seven people had put their ideas forward ("it's the MD because he wants everyone to get on", "it's my head of department because he does my appraisals", "it's my team because they help me achieve my objectives", etc, etc) I finally got frustrated and called out "the only person that matters on that chart is ME - none of the others will pay my mortgage".

It was the right answer.

A year later I was on the committee of the organisation that ran the training session.

Two years later I co-authored what is now the industry standard text in what was my field at the time.

Three years later I was the keynote speaker at the 25th anniversary meeting of the group.

The realisation that you have to shamelessly promote yourself in these ways was key in my career development.

As has been said already, if there's a vacancy the "victim" is going anyway. Taking the post is not doing them down, they were already on the skids.

Ever been fired from a $150k a year job in an area in a recession? I've seen people fired from Cisco who are repairing sinks while they have been desperately seeking work for over a year. It's not easy.
I respect the people I work with and understand that while they are parts of the company, they are also human beings.

Besides, I work best in a #2 position.

A claim could reasonably be made that all advancement occurs at the expense of someone else.

That being said, the devil is in the details. If said person is going to be removed regardless of who fill their position, and you don't find said removal particularly tasteless, you should probably go for it.

Not that this is a very insightful or revelatory position to take on the matter.

My position was created for me.

If I have outperformed the person being replaced, then I will feel it is appropriate and won't feel guilty in the least. I won't gloat, but I will certainly smile as I move into my new office.

And I'll be that someone else had your responsibilities already.

Job creation serves to free up someone else to focus on another set of responsibilities.

Not in cases of expansion. When a company grows and starts to branch out, the people they bring in are replacing nothing but potential and planning.

That doesn't mean that you're the only person who could do it.

So why didn't they hire in house?? That would have improved so and so's life wouldn't it? You took a job that someone else could have filled just as easily.

You bring up Cisco.. which as most big businesses have downsized and/or relocated. That is a totally different subject completely, however I can see the correlation as a worker in another country let someone else have another's job. That's the point, when it comes down to it, the company and it's stockholders are profit driven, they don't care about who does the job as long as it's done well for as cheap as possible. So why should I care if I take your job?? The company thought I could do it better and/or more efficently so have a nice life, good luck in the job market and goodbye.

If it's me that's fired.. big fucking deal. It happens. I would expect the person taking over my job to do a damn good job at what I was doing and I'll survive and find something else. It's called business. In my experience, when you start bringing emotions into the business strategies more than your head, your business will suffer and more than one person will end up down the road you have mentioned.

Sorry, will, but you're wrong. Unless the owners are taking the business in a completely new direction, someone was doing those tasks before. As a small business owner, I can tell you that every single person I ever hired either freed myself or someone else up to focus on something more important (to that individual). It doesn't matter what new position is "created"; those tasks were someone else's responsibility before, although they may have been neglected or done in a radically different way.

Technically, it was in house because I'd been volunteering for years.
Just because you don't understand my specific situation doesn't mean I'm wrong. They WERE taking things in a different direction and they had no one to head that new direction. In walks Willravel, and out walks no one. I took over for no one. Other board members came up with the idea, but none of them were ever responsible for it.

I think as a general rule, people should always be sure before they come right out and say "you're wrong" to me. Or to anyone. It comes off as very condescending—whether you intended it that way or not—, and if the person you're speaking to isn't wrong, then you look even worse for being so sure.

You <i>are</i> wrong.. technically.. in the business sense. Even if they were taking things in a different direction, someone else could easily have filled the same position whether it be by volunteering or applying. Nobody else wanted the job?They chose you. Just because someone didn't walk out didn't mean it didn't take away from someone else, or that you're so special a position made for you didn't have responsibilities that are/were attached to another job or person. How are board members not responsible for decisions and positions they create which affects their money??

All I know is I hope I never have to work with your company if basic procedures can't even be comprehended.

wait a moment.... you were volunteering doing the duties for nothing and then suddenly they pay you 6 figures????

I can't speak specifically to your situation, but even cases like the one described, one person's success will often be at the expense of others (at least in a more general sense). For example, the company moves into a new direction, into a new market they have never been in before. Presumably, there are other competitors in that market and your success may have a negative impact on their success. Even if it is an entirely new market, presumably the product is competing with products in another market, your expansion may then have a negative impact on those individuals.

No one else was doing my job before me. Just because some other people were qualified doesn't mean they were doing the job before me. Why is this so complicated? People below be may have wanted the job, but they were not qualified. All those who are qualified are my peers, on the same level as I am now. Neither of them would have been getting a raise or anything.
No. I was volunteering in a very low position, but they were aware of my business expertise. I occasionally helped out in the higher levels as a consultant.

will, I apologize if I came off as condescending. I didn't intend that. However, without knowing your specifics, then the safe assumption is to think that you fall into the vast majority of jobs.

If this is what happened, then it is one of the extremely rare occassions where no one is replaced at any level. I would venture that it represents a diminishingly small number of new jobs created regardless of industry. Most people are not hired to take companies in radically new directions.

well, they could have gotten 3 people who were 1/3 qualified than you, and thus 3 people would have benefitted more from the job than just you.

I think that's the point that's being made here in which you are poorly defending. NO ONE is irreplaceable nor causes no harm. No one lives and operates in a vacuum.

I figured it wasn't intended. It was just odd that you believed you were more familiar with my situation than I was.
I agree it's rare.
Did they have the job? No. Look up "replaced". You are using the word incorrectly. I was the only person considered for the job, and my offer to help out was the reason they even pursued the project. So no, I replaced absolutely no one.

I didn't state replace. I'm going for reasonable benefit to maximum people since that is pretty much the crux of this. Your position of high salary could easily be accommodated by 3 people getting paid roughly 1/3 of your salary. It not much different than the idea that the CEO of Kaiser getting paid millions in salary would easily benefit more people than just 1.

What I'm mostly confused about here, is how you volunteer for a VP position that is magically created. You say they knew of your expertise, yet if I were considering hiring a VP I damn sure wouldn't just take the first one who volunteered for that position.

Either way, the position that you didn't "replace" anyone may be true in one sense, yet as Cyn has pointed out, it would be just as easy to hire a team of people for less money than they paid you, and received the same result, which would have "helped" out 3 people instead of the singular you.

There is no such thing as job security.. none.

This is kind of a silly argument going on.

Obviously to Will the key is someone losing something they had, in his case apparently that didn't happen. His moral compass feels good.

To others, the issue it is to doesn't matter if someone lost a job or not, morally its the same as the resources going to pay Will could be used for someone else.

I of course fall more into the second camp, but I can see Wills point, even if I wouldn't follow it.

Okay, time to get specific. I used to work for a local internet company that dealt in sales. I worked my way from management into a VP position there, but the CEO was a ponce and screwed the whole company up pretty bad. Once I realized this was the case, I started looking for work elsewhere. While I was working for this company, I was also volunteering my time at a local non-profit organization that deals with low income people. I did everything from handing stuff out to occasionally helping out with administrative stuff, as a volunteer. I liked helping out. Neeways, that non-profit was doing pretty well, and they decided that things needed to move in a direction in addition to the direction they were taking, and they knew about my business experience. They asked me if I would be interested in temporarily overseeing it, and I said sure. It went well, and the position is now permanent. I'm no longer making 6 figures as Cynth said above (yes, I took a pay cut), so I've also had to take an additional job with a local software company. They didn't just "hire he first one who volunteered". I have executive experience and, apparently, people skills that the jobs requires.