Didn’t get promotion because I’m white

[TreNine36]

I know I’m not going to get many on my side on this one, but I am absolutely shocked and crushed that I did not get my promotion. The reason I am suspecting discrimination is, although I am the supposed privileged American white man(27 yo), the company I work for has all Mexican people as my immediate superiors, except for one black man. A few days after my interview, I had a conversation with the black man, who was present at my interview. He expressed his interest in me getting the promotion, claimed he was talking me up to our COO and told me not to let him down. Yesterday I get called into our conference room along with him, and three of my other superiors(all Mexican) where they inform me that I “didn’t make the cut” because they had others that were more qualified. Mind you there were three people being promoted. I’m by far the hardest working employee my company has and that has been reassured by a number of clients and sponsors that have been working with my company since before I have. Today, I learned who the three that got promoted were (all Mexican) and it couldn’t be more obvious to me that they are playing favorites. One of them was a great choice actually, an older guy who has been with the company for a while and knows the ins and outs of pretty much everything we do. I was expecting that one. The other two I can’t wrap my head around. One is a female who has been there a little longer than me, but is far less knowledgeable and professional than I am. Any time I worked with her in the past, she was at my mercy because she didn’t know how to do much on her own. Part of me thinks they hired her just so that nobody could claim discrimination due to gender. The last one is a younger guy, who came in after me and shadowed me. I literally taught this guy everything he knows, and they gave him the job over me. I actually had to take over one of his jobs a few weeks ago because the client wasn’t happy. I heard he even got into an argument with them. Needless to say after I went, our client is back to his happy old self. This kid has told me himself how lazy he is. I mean I have experience that these guys haven’t even scratched the surface of yet. Do I have a legitimate gripe? Or should I let it ride? It’s just burning me so hard to know how hard I work, then watch these slackers get the job I deserve. The ONLY thing that they can say they have over me is that they speak fluent spanish, and I’m not quite there yet. But that seems like it would be a ridiculous reason.

 

[quincy]

What is the name of your state?

 

[Just Blue]

I know I’m not going to get many on my side on this one, but I am absolutely shocked and crushed that I did not get my promotion. The reason I am suspecting discrimination is, although I am the supposed privileged American white man(27 yo), the company I work for has all Mexican people as my immediate superiors, except for one black man. A few days after my interview, I had a conversation with the black man, who was present at my interview. He expressed his interest in me getting the promotion, claimed he was talking me up to our COO and told me not to let him down. Yesterday I get called into our conference room along with him, and three of my other superiors(all Mexican) where they inform me that I “didn’t make the cut” because they had others that were more qualified. Mind you there were three people being promoted. I’m by far the hardest working employee my company has and that has been reassured by a number of clients and sponsors that have been working with my company since before I have. Today, I learned who the three that got promoted were (all Mexican) and it couldn’t be more obvious to me that they are playing favorites. One of them was a great choice actually, an older guy who has been with the company for a while and knows the ins and outs of pretty much everything we do. I was expecting that one. The other two I can’t wrap my head around. One is a female who has been there a little longer than me, but is far less knowledgeable and professional than I am. Any time I worked with her in the past, she was at my mercy because she didn’t know how to do much on her own. Part of me thinks they hired her just so that nobody could claim discrimination due to gender. The last one is a younger guy, who came in after me and shadowed me. I literally taught this guy everything he knows, and they gave him the job over me. I actually had to take over one of his jobs a few weeks ago because the client wasn’t happy. I heard he even got into an argument with them. Needless to say after I went, our client is back to his happy old self. This kid has told me himself how lazy he is. I mean I have experience that these guys haven’t even scratched the surface of yet. Do I have a legitimate gripe? Or should I let it ride? It’s just burning me so hard to know how hard I work, then watch these slackers get the job I deserve. The ONLY thing that they can say they have over me is that they speak fluent spanish, and I’m not quite there yet. But that seems like it would be a ridiculous reason.

What state?

 

[cbg]

It would, however, be a legal reason if the job requires it.

 

[LdiJ]

I know I’m not going to get many on my side on this one, but I am absolutely shocked and crushed that I did not get my promotion. The reason I am suspecting discrimination is, although I am the supposed privileged American white man(27 yo), the company I work for has all Mexican people as my immediate superiors, except for one black man. A few days after my interview, I had a conversation with the black man, who was present at my interview. He expressed his interest in me getting the promotion, claimed he was talking me up to our COO and told me not to let him down. Yesterday I get called into our conference room along with him, and three of my other superiors(all Mexican) where they inform me that I “didn’t make the cut” because they had others that were more qualified. Mind you there were three people being promoted. I’m by far the hardest working employee my company has and that has been reassured by a number of clients and sponsors that have been working with my company since before I have. Today, I learned who the three that got promoted were (all Mexican) and it couldn’t be more obvious to me that they are playing favorites. One of them was a great choice actually, an older guy who has been with the company for a while and knows the ins and outs of pretty much everything we do. I was expecting that one. The other two I can’t wrap my head around. One is a female who has been there a little longer than me, but is far less knowledgeable and professional than I am. Any time I worked with her in the past, she was at my mercy because she didn’t know how to do much on her own. Part of me thinks they hired her just so that nobody could claim discrimination due to gender. The last one is a younger guy, who came in after me and shadowed me. I literally taught this guy everything he knows, and they gave him the job over me. I actually had to take over one of his jobs a few weeks ago because the client wasn’t happy. I heard he even got into an argument with them. Needless to say after I went, our client is back to his happy old self. This kid has told me himself how lazy he is. I mean I have experience that these guys haven’t even scratched the surface of yet. Do I have a legitimate gripe? Or should I let it ride? It’s just burning me so hard to know how hard I work, then watch these slackers get the job I deserve. The ONLY thing that they can say they have over me is that they speak fluent spanish, and I’m not quite there yet. But that seems like it would be a ridiculous reason.

It would be a ridiculous reason in some circumstances, but if you are in an industry where speaking Spanish is seriously helpful then it might not be ridiculous at all.

 

[TreNine36]

I’m in California guys

 

[TreNine36]

speaking Spanish was not in the job description

 

[cbg]

Does the position interact with a lot of Spanish speaking people?

We had a position open a while ago for which Spanish speaking is not required and not in the job description, but someone who is bi-lingual is always going to be given higher precedence over someone who is not, because we do interact with people from a number of cultures and speak a number of languages. While 3 of the 6 people in that position only speak English (including myself), I have found not knowing another language to be a disadvantage and on a weekly basis I have to call someone who does to assist.

I am not saying that IS what happened in your case; I am asking if it is a possibility. You know what the job duties are. I don't.

 

[TreNine36]

I would say speaking spanish is definitely valuable in this position, but not as valuable as real life experience in the work that we will be supervising. Anybody that we would be supervising speaks 100% English as do all of our clients and sponsors. There may be a few employees that work under the people that we would be supervising that speak only spanish, but our interaction with them would be limited.

 

[cbg]

Obviously no one here can say that you absolutely did or did not lose the promotion because of your race. But...does your employer have an HR office?

 

[TreNine36]

Obviously no one here can say that you absolutely did or did not lose the promotion because of your race. But...does your employer have an HR office?

yes

 

[cbg]

I don't think it can do any harm for you to discuss the matter with them.

See, I don't know if you have a valid claim or not. You may; you may not. It's not possible for us to say with the information we have. But I do know that IF you do, you need to exhaust all your internal remedies first. You can seriously harm or even kill a legal claim by not attempting to resolve it internally first. If you can find a successful resolution with HR, great. If you can't, you will have done your claim no harm and may have done it some good by doing so when you talk to an employment attorney and/or the EEOC.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Do I have a legitimate gripe?

If the reason was your race then you have a good claim for race discrimination. If the reason was something else then there is no race discrimination claim to pursue. And race discrimination against white employees is just as illegal as discrimination against any other race.

Some things to consider. First, it is human nature for people to minimize or overlook their flaws and shortcomings. While you believe you were the best choice for the promotion it may be that company officials did not see you as well as you saw yourself. Second, you may not be aware of the factors that the company used to make the choices that it made. The people that were selected might have had skills for that position that were better than what you had. Remember, being great at your current position does not automatically make you a great candidate for some other position. For example, I've known lawyers that are great at their jobs but who would suck as a manager and should never be promoted to a manager position. Being a manager takes different skills that they lacked. So perhaps there are reasons they got promoted that you don't know about.

That said, if you believe that race was the reason you were not selected you are free to file a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). You have to do that anyway before you may sue the employer for a federal claim of employment discrimination. For a race discrimination claim under California law you need to file a complaint with the California Department of Fair Employment & Housing (DFEH). You can file with both agencies with one filing. See the EEOC page on dual filing. The agency will ask the employer to respond to your charge of illegal discrimination and the response may explain to you why you didn't get picked. I recommend that you see an attorney who litigates employment discrimination claims for help with the agency complaints because what you say in those complaints could affect your later lawsuit should you decide to sue

Note that federal and California law prohibit your employer from retaliating against you for making the complaint. But you'd have to prove the retaliation. A clever employer might still fire you or otherwise take action against you and successfully make it look like it was done for some other reason. Your employer certainly won't be happy about the complaint, so if you go forward with it you may expect that things will get at least a bit frosty between you and your employer.

The ONLY thing that they can say they have over me is that they speak fluent spanish, and I’m not quite there yet.

If that is a legitimate requirement for the position then it is legal for the employer to reject you for promotion if you lack that skill.

 

[Zigner]

The "tone" of this post leads me to believe that the OP may have seriously overestimated his abilities and worth to the company.

 

[TreNine36]

The "tone" of this post leads me to believe that the OP may have seriously overestimated his abilities and worth to the company.

As I stated, multiple clients and sponsors that have been working with my company for longer than I have, have expressed that I am the best they have ever seen from my company and continuously ask for my services specifically and no one else.

Also, as I stated, the ONE non-Mexican hiring manager basically expressed that I was one of his choices, to “not let him down” in a private conversation.

Maybe if you could actually read and not focus on the “tone” of a written paragraph, you would have picked up on that.

Also, they all admitted that if anyone were to step down for any reason, I would be next in line to take the position.

Don’t disrespect me like that. I am a humble, extremely hard worker. I have saved their ass from being fired from multiple contracts. I don’t complain or ask for anything, but I feel like I’m being screwed over. No need for your clueless comments.