Denied a promotion.

I have been employed at a major aerospace company since 1979 -- 21+ years. For 15+ of those years I have worked in its public relations office for the manager of Community Relations, along with a staff of about 12-13 others. Through natural attrition, we now have an office of 3. I have accepted quite a load of responsibilities over the years, and finally have spent the majority of my time working on community relations -- at least for the past 5 years. For reasons that stump me, our director of communications was replaced with a fellow who is an engineer (he had been with the Business Development org.) He has been "director" of communications for about 1-1/2 years, overseeing employee communications, media relations, and community relations. I took his hand and briefed him on all of my responsibilities -- company philanthropy, community outreach programs, and the like. Before coming to the PR organization, he had not day-one experience in this field.

In the course of an ongoing transition within the company, my boss was given my job.

Repeated questions to the gent who hired him, to the vice president, and human resources organization, have gone unanswered. No one seems to want to touch this with a ten-foot pole.

Although I love my job and have formed excellent relationships with the cities surrounding my office, it's not so much that I won't be in the capacity any longer. It is that the job is now deemed worthy of a salary that is probably more than double that of mine, and it is also now a managerial position.

One of the objectives in the company transition was to keep the level of management down to the lowest level for streamline operation. I was not offered the opportunity to interview for this managerial position.

People I've shared this story with at work are dumbfounded, so I know it's not my imagination.

Please contact me for more detail. There is so much more to this story that meets the eye.