Workplace Nightmares·
PROMOTION GONE FAKE
A worker in South Carolina is groomed for a store manager role, only to uncover a manipulated promotion and a clash that leaves them weighing legal help.
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The moment the poster realized their promotion was fake came from two coworkers, not from the manager who set it up.
In South Carolina, the worker says they had recently been pushed into a promotion pathway at their store and were being groomed to become the next store manager. Their name was added to the succession chart, and the message was clear: they were in line for the top job.
Then came the catch. Along with the new title-in-waiting came a heavier load. The poster says they were given increased responsibilities and a list of metrics to hit. For four months, they say, they did exactly that. Every requirement, every assignment, every target, they say it was all met.
But the story took a sharp turn when a couple of employees pulled them aside and told them what the store manager had allegedly been doing behind the scenes: asking staff to "hide this new manager from me" so the poster would keep meeting the higher requirements for a position that, according to the poster, "no longer existed."
That was the break. The promotion path the poster believed they were on had apparently vanished, but the workload had not. The poster says they saw that as an unfair labor practice and responded the way they thought fit: they "declared a strike."
The manager's answer was immediate and blunt. According to the poster, the current manager told them they "don't have the right to strike" and then fired them.
Now the poster is left asking what comes next. The question isn't whether the termination stung, it did. The question is whether to handle the fight alone by filing with the National Labor Relations Board, or to bring in representation first.
So the situation sits there, stripped down to its facts: a worker told they were next for promotion, assigned more duties, told they were meeting every metric, then informed by coworkers that management had allegedly hidden the new manager from them to keep the pressure on. After declaring a strike, they were dismissed on the spot. Now they want to know whether they should seek representation.