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I have recently been promoted and my supervisors keep asking me to do my old job on top of my new responsibilities. They have not replaced me yet. I want to be a team player and help out but I feel it's important for me to focus on my new duties and not be forced into doing work that quite frankly isn't my job anymore.

Today I was pulled aside and reprimanded (I didn't realise it was a reprimand until afterwards, when I received an email from my supervisor to "recap what we discussed") and was basically told that I have to put aside the job I was promoted to and do the old job. They feel that I am not being supportive of the team because I don't want to do two jobs at once, and want to focus on myself so I can learn my new position. I felt bombarded and attacked when I received this email.

What can I do to protect myself from this happening again? I want to be able to focus on my new position and management does not seem to respect that.

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  • You mention in the comments that someone else is doing your old job as well - what's the time division like? How much of your time goes into your old job?
    – Erik
    Jan 25, 2017 at 6:42
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    Is your new position a "step up" from your old position, or in a different area altogether? And was the person you're replacing in charge of you before he/she left? If so, you're likely to be considered in charge of both projects now. It doesn't matter if there's a new employee for your old position, it's up to you to make sure all the work gets done, and to push/convince management to get a replacement. They may not be planning on getting a replacement at all, even if they said so in the past.
    – Steve
    Jan 25, 2017 at 7:19

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I feel it's important for me to focus on my new duties and not be forced into doing work that quite frankly isn't my job anymore.

Who says it's not your job any more, you or management? If you are the only one available and you refuse to do the tasks that need to be done, what do you expect management to do to you in view of your noncooperation?

They feel that I am not being supportive of the team because i don't want to do two jobs at once and want to focus on myself so I can learn my new position.

According to you, are they correct in their assessment of your situation? Personally, I think they hit the nail on the head.

I want to be able to focus on my new position and management does not seem to respect that.

Would you feel better if management rescinded your promotion? After all, they were the ones who gave it to you in the first place.

I felt bombarded and attacked when I received this email. What can I do to protect myself from this happening again?

Incontrovertible fact #1: your old job needs to get done.

If you are the only one available and you recuse yourself, there will be considerable fall out on you.

Incontrovertible fact #2: if you refuse to do your old job, the whole team gets impacted and everyone knows who is the culprit: you.

You need to be more constructive at this point than you are.

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My understanding is that you've gotten a promotion, given all these new responsibilities, but yet the company is expecting that you continue to perform your old job?

Im missing something here, why did they promote you in the first place if they needed you to do the first job more than the new job? Better yet, Im better looking to understand what was discussed during the promotion, was it expected that you where to continue doing both jobs? During the promotion, was there the expectation that you where to focus now on the new role? Hows the company culture, are most people wearing multiple hats?

All of this is hard to determine from your post alone, but here are a few scenarios.

  1. The company fully explained to you that taking this promotion would require you to focus on two jobs, they really meant it, and you want to focus on a particular job. If this is the case then square things with management and explain to them how you see it, second thing to do is get your expectations in order, figure out how soon a replacement is on the way.

  2. Management gave you a promotion, but didnt think about all the implications of it, now they come to realize they still need someone actually doing job 1. If I was in this situation I'd begin to question the company I worked for and started looking for new opportunity since its clear that this place is being mismanaged.

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  • I was promoted to replace someone who was leaving. They have had multiple interviews but have yet to choose a replacement. It has been about 3 months. I feel that is a very long time to not replace someone. I was not told about doing my old job until I started the new position. I was told they would only need me to step in here and there but it has become more and more frequent.
    – Maggie
    Jan 25, 2017 at 3:52
  • Three months for hiring is not unusual. They not only need to find someone who is a good fit, they need to convince themselves someone better is not worth waiting for.
    – keshlam
    Jan 25, 2017 at 3:56
  • There is also someone else who does my old job as well. She is having trouble handling the work load but before she was hired I was the one doing the whole workload by myself. It seems that they may be taking advantage.
    – Maggie
    Jan 25, 2017 at 3:58
  • The person who I replaced was retiring and they knew he was retiring the year before. They had plently of time to put a plan into place to fill these positions.
    – Maggie
    Jan 25, 2017 at 4:01
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When I was in a position of doing multiple jobs that (IMO) should have been covered by other employees - I was taking care of duties that in the past had been filled by three (!) separate people - I scheduled seven consecutive business days of vacation and flew out of town to visit family.

Miraculously, after many months of insisting there was absolutely no way these tasks could get done without me, when I came back they had rearranged the workload so someone else was doing the tasks I had (not) been moved away from.

The employer I was at had a lot of issues, but fortunately respecting vacation time was something they did right, enabling me to push back in this way. It made my last several months there more tolerable. I'm still really glad I left, though - here I'd agree with TheM00s3's #2 point that this may be a warning sign.

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Are you receiving promoted pay? If you are then I don't really see an issue. You're doing work you used to get X$ for and now you're getting XX$.

So for instance in my forestry days I got made a charge hand, which meant I was in charge of a team of planters, but I still planted trees, my duties as a charge hand were extra (for which I got paid). Many jobs I have had have been like that in that promotion wasn't really a full change of job.

And many small promotions can feel like a small step backwards full of headaches but can be a proving ground for further advancement.

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