I think work wants me to make a lateral move to a job I don’t want

[jtt9872]

Hey guys, I’ve been working at my company for 3 years now and so far I really enjoy my job. The problem I’m having is there are 3 people in my department and one applied for a supervisor job that I’m almost certain he will get (though it’s not confirmed). The way our department works is two of us work in a more mechanical focused aspect of our job and the other one works on the computer side of it. I work on the mechanical side and it’s what I enjoy. The one who applied for the supervisor is the one who works with computers. I have helped him of course from time to time and I absolutely despise the work he does and it doesn’t interest me at all. I think if he gets that job management will try to put me in his old position since there will be only two of us. We are all the same job title so it would be a lateral move. People in the company for some reason think I’m an expert on computers. I will help people with basic windows troubles but that’s my extent of it. This has really started to bother me and I’m not sure what approach I should take. If he gets the job should I go to management and explain that I have no interest in that position? Or should I wait and see if they approach me? It would be a major gut punch if they moved me there and then hired someone else to do the job I want to do. Any advice is appreciated, thanks.

At risk of stating the obvious, if you are asked to take the job, say you don’t want to. Then take it from there, you seem to be worrying about something that hasn’t happened.

You can give them a heads up first rather than wait for them to tell you what is happening. Just putting your cards on the table. It's absolutely fine - I've had team members tell me what they want and don't want to do, it's helpful as a manager because it helps me in my planning

They can give you his responsibilities without asking you to take over his job completely if you're all part of the same team. If they try to, make your limitations very clear.

If your skill set is a poor or non-existent match to the role you think they'll move you to, you need to make this clear. Is it a technical Helpdesk or customer support IT role. If so they definitely can't screw that up by putting the wrong person in that customer-facing role.

Agree with this^^

Tell them what you want.

I've been 'offered opportunities' to do things I have no desire to do. I used to agree or make my excuses, but now I'm just quite direct about it and my manager seems to appreciate that and she certainly doesn't pressure me (assuming it's not part of my job already obviously)

Thanks for replying guys, to give some more context the job isn’t really IT related. The role is dealing with the computer control systems at a power plant. There is some IT work here and there like patching and all that. We work together a lot but he definitely has his own thing he does, as do I. The only reason I haven’t talked to anybody in management yet is I thought it would be odd to approach them and say this without knowing who’s gotten the job yet. Also, this place is notorious for taking forever to hire somebody. So someone would have to fill that role for a while and I’m not sure if my co worker would inherit those duties for a time while supervising. The guy I work with right now has 2 years MAX before he retires so I think that’s the one advantage I have. If I were to approach them should I talk to my supervisor or go straight to the head honcho of the place that will be making that decision?

Speak to your supervisor. It'd be disrespectful to go over their head. But then you could email them to reiterate your conversation and CC in the decision maker with your rationale