Promotion (was RE: IT documentation

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 Dick Margulis [mailto:margulis -at- fiam -dot- net] offered:
> John Posada wrote:

> > If your job is to create comprehensive documentation, then 
> if you do it
> > well, you are doing your job well and isn't that what some 
> promotions
> > are for?
> No, it has not been my experience that people get promoted for doing 
> their jobs well. I no longer imagine the existence of a corporation 
> where such a system can succeed for long; it is entirely inconsistent 
> with the logic of corporate hierarchies. Didn't we just have this 
> conversation, John?

Maybe my situation is unique, but I wonder.

According to my yearly evaluations and according to 
other, independent sources, I've been doing my job 
well for the 5-1/2 years I've been here, and it 
hasn't gotten me promoted (the bursting of the DOT-bomb
tech bubble didn't help). Nor is doing my job well likely 
to get me more than continued employment in my current 
job, now that we've been bought by a company that prefers 
to consolidate corporate management functions in the USA.

That is, if they do decide to create a corporate 
documentation manager position, it would be in Maryland.
So even if I was offered, I couldn't accept (unless the 
offer was truly spectacular). 
Based on what other people have been offered, the salary would 
be quite nice, but would not be enough to offset either:

a) an unemployed and unemployable wife (without green card) 
   moving with me or

b) maintaining a home and vehicles in each country so that 
   my wife could remain employed up here (Ottawa, Canada)

Besides, if I moved and then another corporate shuffle 
made me "redundant", I'd be stuck in the US with no work 
visa, and probably no home or job to come back to in Canada. 
That's the sort of thing you chance when you're 25, not 50.
Eats up the old savings really quickly.

On the other hand, I could get promoted here if I were to 
take on somebody ELSE's job. That's how most promotions 
have happened around here, and it makes sense. But, since 
I enjoy what I do and am not attracted to the other areas 
where I could make a splash, I'm content to do what I do 
(while keeping an eye on the ads and the grapevine, of course...).

/kevin