Top 10 Actions To Prevent Yourself From Getting Promoted

1. Constantly point out how productive you are and question why so-and-so isn't doing as much as you.

2. Seek out ways to attract the attention of your boss...asking unnecessary questions, sparking small talk several times a day, making jokes about laziness, etc.

3. Make comments like, "I'm glad I don't have to worry about that!" upon noticing a challenging task your boss is tackling.

4. Insist that you take your break exactly at your scheduled time each day with no flexibility for the day's events. When asked to adjust your schedule, pout.

5. Tell your supervisor daily how well you think she's doing and how well she handles everything. Word of wisdom...kissing up has to be subtle to have the desired effect.

6. Go out of your way to avoid face-to-face communication with the person responsible for deciding whether to promote you. Instead, go out of your way to communicate about all issues via email only.

7. Refer to the higher position as being "easy" and claim that you already know most of what you'd need to learn already.

8. Assume that you're the top candidate simply because nothing explicitly negative came up in the interview for the promotion. And, more importantly, start a rumor that you're going to be offered the promotion.

9. Demonstrate your comfort with showing authority by bossing around co-workers and looking for mistakes in their work. Suddenly become the office tattle-tale.

10. Offer to get a head start on the promotion's responsibilities or to assist in some of your boss' projects...even though you haven't gotten the promotion yet.

As you can guess, there is a promotion available where I work...and I'm one of the key decision-makers involved. We have many internal applicants. There are two applicants in particular who display nearly all the above traits between the two of them. One even caught me in the restroom the other day over the lunch hour, and she immediately launched into an explanation of how she "just like" realized last night how "like" great she'd be for the position.

Help!