UGH. Can I bitch a sec?

So, last night had my annual review. It was generally great--I am good at my job, and since I work from home, no one is like "OMG you left early and seemed to be on the internet a lot" as long as I get the work done and done well. Which is so much better than when I worked in an office. And I was told I'm good and my work is good, and people like to work with me. YAY. BUT, at one point I was talking about how they basically took away half my job (granted, most of that half was the stuff I dislike!) and so I've felt like it's hard to be challenged, blah blah, and she started talking about how that's true and part of her job and what she'll be trying to do next year is challenge me, and it's hard for her to find things, especially for people who don't want to become managers, blah blah blah, and I was like "Um..what? I am not anti-being-a-manager?" I think she got in her head that I don't want to be a manager. Which...not true. Granted, my IDEAL job would still have some travel (managers don't), but...I also don't want to be in this job for the next umpty-years.

And then today found out that TWO MORE of my current team have been or are being promoted. Including one girl who I have found fairly useless, and I am SO IRKED. I had a talk set up with my project manager today, who was fairly nice and did have some good things to discusss..but part of it was saying "OK, so [other person] is going to take over some management things since we're losing [personX] to be a manager on another team, so I would like you to take over some of her [ourjob] duties". ...WTF? ARGH.

Were you able to make it clear (to the people who can make it happen) that you're interested in becoming a manager? Because, regardless of how they got the impression you aren't interested, if they think you don't want to be one, then they'll promote useless people instead of you. Wave that management flag!

Were you able to make it clear (to the people who can make it happen)

I think so? I think I need to more forcefully remind her a few times soon, though. And we did eventually talk about having her nominate me for this manager training program (which is not required to become a manager, nor is it promised that if you take it you will become one, but...). But I'm still just UGH over the people who HAVE been promoted.

Ick, bonny. I hope it's nothing serious.

meara, I'm sorry. That must be really frustrating. I hope you get the promotion that I'm sure you deserve very soon.

Thanks for the outrage on my behalf last night. Sometimes I just need to make sure that I'm not overreacting to people because I do tend to do that.

and it's hard for her to find things, especially for people who don't want to become managers, blah blah blah, and I was like "Um..what? I am not anti-being-a-manager?"

I've gotten this more than once and it's a real problem. I don't know if it stems from being more independent and not all up in everyone's business?

I've learned (the hard way, after an incident very similar) that at my current company anyway you are better off - expected, really - to be very open about your goals, and to be an advocate for yourself. It was a real adjustment for me to get comfortable approaching someone higher up and say outright things like "I want to be promoted to X and I need your support/advice etc."

Also a problem: I want to go to Mexico again this year, but we don't know when our crunch time is coming, exactly (it depends on when we hit a certain number of patients). They had been saying we'd hit that point end of Jan/begin of Feb, and I thought "great, we'll be done being busy by mid March and I can plan vacation"....but now they're saying end of Feb/begin of March, and I don't know if/when I can go, because it would have to be like, early February? Which might be too soon?

I hate the fact that the no-management ceiling is so damned low. Bless Countrywide for that--they had clear career pathing, and every pay/prestige level up to (and including) VP was open to people who didn't want to manage people. I have no idea if this place has a "next" for me, and I certainly don't want to go back to management, especially not how it works here (although the bare minimum I'd have to do wouldn't be much, they wouldn't be tasks I would want to add).

Getting your wishes across must be harder when when you travel a lot too--remote there's not so much ability to get the subtext across, I'd think. But coming back to someone and telling them what they want when they haven't told you flat out? Not slick management.

Part of our review process is being rated as "meeting expectations", "not meeting expectations", or "exceeding expectations". Which is kind of a bitch. I work my ass off. Everyone knows I work my ass off. It is expected of me. So how the heck can I ever "exceed expectations"?

I need to do my self-eval by next Tuesday and I HATE doing those things. And I need to do this one with the heavy slant toward - GIVE ME A GRADE INCREASE - which my boss supports, but it has to go up the chain, so the better the documentation, the easier it will be for them to approve.

Discussions like these are why I like owning a company, and not working for one.

Seriously, who says to someone who is handicapped, "The best blessing in the world is to have a normal child"?

And I'll just bet that replying, "Well, better a handicapped child than a normal one who grows up to be an ass hole I suppose" is somehow rude, huh?