Work promotions in In the Kingdom of Suzu

The past month has seen some promotions at work although not for me but I did not want any promotion. The promotion that would have seemed logical for me I did not want because it would mean staying in the office all the time and not going to court and it would also mean a pay cut. I am at the top of my pay range and by the time I would equal it, it would be time for me to retire. In addition, I really like going to court and do not like when I have to be in the office.

My office is the “record-keeping” part of the courthouse and contains 4 divisions: criminal (my division), civil (pfa filings, judgments, passports, civillitigation), deeds and wills. Marriage licenses is a totally different department not overseen by the big boss. The divisions are overseen by a big boss who is elected (she was the chief deputy of my division when I started who has gotten elected to the top position and stayed there all these years, which also caused some conflict, but that is another story). Each division has a chief deputy and then an assistant chief deputy. About a month ago the chief deputy of deeds decided to retire. We received notification of her retirement one day and then a week later it was announced that the assistant chief of my division was going to take her place. The job was never posted and the woman who took it had absolutely no experience in that field. In fact, when I started in criminal, she was a part-timer who proofed all day long! Needless to say, there was quite a lot of talk about that. I never had much of a problem with her but a lot of the criminal people did. She is a gossipy, know-it-all woman who still micro manages her married with two kids 34 yr old daughter. Yeah for us but feel story for the deeds people.

Criminal now has an open assistant chief deputy. Several people applied and the logical candidate was my immediate supervisor (D) who I didn’t want to see get it (but only for selfish reasons as our working relationship would change, she would be in a different part of the office and I would really miss her being my supervisor) but knew she was going to apply because it is more money, her husband took a different job a year or so ago, she carries the benefits and she is also now pregnant at 39 with their first child. She did get the job but now that leaves her position open and it really gets sticky.

I made it quite plain that I was not interested in applying because of the reasons stated above, however, I figured two of my court girl co-workers (J1 and J2) were. The first girl, J1, has been at the office for 8 yrs, had been doing back-up for D, was recently made a deputy and learned bail. J2 (who I trained) has been with the county 5 yrs, only was back-up for scheduling purposes, did not know bail nor was a deputy. In addition, J2 had a few issues with one of the judges a few years ago and I recently found out that had an issue a couple of weeks ago that was so bad, other girls had to cover for her with that judge for the rest of the month! Guess who got the job? Not J1 who had more experience but J2!

I am sorry but to me, the whole thing was not fair. It should not have surprised me because similar things have happened in the past. It is not always who is the best qualified but rather who they like best that gets it which is another reason why I did not want to apply for that position because the one chief deputy does not care for me. I have had issues with her in the past and while it is ok now, I don’t trust her and I know there are other people who feel the same as I do. J1 is very laid back and is friendly with a couple of the court girls that this chief deputy does not care for also. J2 is more reserved and while friendly with all of us is pretty much a loner. Funny thing is when D first got the position over us a few years ago, she was friendly with all of us, her MIL was a fellow court girl, and the girl who should have been the logical choice cuz she had more experience was a bully and so she had been looked over for many things—I could see why but in this case, no, J1 should have gotten the job.