Promotion

Well, a few weeks ago I applied for a Transportation Engineer 2 position in my office. I did it more for a practice interview for any SDDOT interviews that I will entertain in the near future. As most of my loyal readers know, I am dedicated to returning to SD.

Well, I learned yesterday that I was one of the canidates chosen for promotion. I was quite shocked, since I have not even been employed for a whole year yet. I explained to my supervisor my desire to return to SD (with a job waiting for me) and that I had applications out. My curveball barely made him flinch. He matter of factly stated that the promotion would stand anyway. The only change would be that I would be placed in a different squad than initially planned. Actually, rather than being transferred to a new squad, my promotion keeps me in the same squad. This change is to place the "risk" (his words, not mine) of me leaving on smaller projects.

Why would they promote somone who does not intend to stay? The logic does make (some) sense: as a TE1, I was already wanting to leave, so a promotion acts as an attempt to "bribe" me to stay. It won't work, though. In the words of the Steve Miller Band, I'll "take the money and run" What it will do is make me work even harder (actually it shouldn't be difficult) to convince any offers from the SDDOT to wait until July for me; I will have spent 1 year with the WSDOT by then.

I am not sure what kind of raise I will receive. I haven't been given any kind of official letter yet, but I believe that it was hinted to be around 5%. Oddly enough, my TE1 salary was already at the 67th percintile of the TE1 salary range, the 28th percentile of theTE2 salary range.

All in all, apparently I am competent and well-liked by the WSDOT management!