'The Un-promotables' band together and find the perfect loophole to fight favoritism in the workplace

In the current corporate culture, hard work doesn't guarantee success. Many people are overlooked for promotions despite the amount of effort they have put in. This story, "The Unpromotables," shared by Reddit user u/Unlikely_Ad2116, on the subreddit r/MaliciousCompliance, relays the same dilemma. Before beginning the anecdote the person talked about how promotions in the US government jobs ideally should work. "In the USA, government jobs are covered by the Civil Service System. This is supposed to ensure that Government jobs are given out 'based on what you know, not who you know,'" the post reads.

The post then talks about a test that is taken for the position. The people who score the highest on the test are typically first in line for these jobs. This uses, "The Rule of Three. The job is supposed to go to one of the three highest-scoring candidates who agree to accept the job if offered. Promotion examinations are held the same way," they write. However, employers despise this fair role and do everything in their power to bypass these conditions.

The former employee explains how there was a group of employees at their State agency who took every promotion exam possible and scored top marks. "We all had excellent work records, and even awards for productivity, innovation, and 'going the extra mile.' None of us had any black marks in our personnel files," they read. The retired employee then says how bosses don't like people who are diligent and often talk about the problems in the standard operating procedure of the agency. "'Why are we doing this this way? This is awkward and inefficient! We can streamline this process!' Bosses don't like this kind of language," they write.

A dynamic group of talented, driven employees was consistently overlooked for promotions. "The people the bosses wanted to promote were lower on the lists. But if three of us applied, were interviewed, and said 'Yes' then the job legally had to be given to one of us," they added. Soon, these dynamic employees identified each other and formed a "support group" calling themselves—"The Unpromotables."

Before long, this savvy group discovered a way to turn the tables on their management. "They soon started applying for all the available positions and not just the positions they were attracted to. "No matter how bad the job, how mean the boss, how toxic the office, no matter what the duties- we all applied," the employee chimed.

When they heard back from the management, they all said a joyous, "Yes." Soon enough, this started driving them insane—"It was both funny and frustrating to see management leave a position unfilled rather than give it to any of us," the honored member of 'The Unpromotables' further shared. This resulted in many other employees feeling overburdened after trying to pick up the slack from these vacant positions.

In between all this, the Reddit user highlighted one incident where their promotion was shot down by the boss for a very common reason. They just didn't want to lose the employee currently occupying that role. "That boss blocked my promotions for over a decade," they added.

"Sorry, this doesn't have a happy ending. That was still the status quo when I took early retirement the second I turned 55. Was planning on working longer, but 30+ years of a steady diet of toxic crap was drastically affecting my physical and mental health." Even though this story of resilience doesn't end on a 'happy' note, it was deemed victorious by the people on the internet.

It also prompted many others to openly share their experiences of favoritism in the workplace. "I have a BFF whose promotion was blocked by her boss (who she covered for when the boss was out dealing with cancer treatments for over a year) because the boss wanted to keep her skills in-house (and didn't want my friend to land a better job than them). It worked for a while, but BFF did finally get out from under the thumb and is now in a plum position with little oversight," read a comment by u/2dogslife. "I’m just impressed that you put up with someone blocking your promotions for a decade. I would have left way before that," added another.