Omar Zenhom asked his college dean why he wasn't promoted, only to learn they were hiring someone from outside instead. Despite doing good work, he had no control over his own career. That realization made him quit.
So I asked my boss, the dean of the college, for a meeting. I wanted to sit down across from her and ask her two questions. Why I did not get the promotion yet, and am I doing a good job? She looked at me and said, "Omar, you're doing a fantastic job. The department has never been better." And then she said, "But I gotta level with you. The director of the university wants to make an outside hire for this position." In that moment, I was crushed. Crushed. Something happened inside of me when I left that room that I didn't expect. My frustration finally outgrew my fear. In that moment, I realized something that changed everything. I had zero control over my career. Zero. No matter how well I performed, no matter how hard I worked, no matter how much good I was doing, someone else always is going to make a decision, make a final call that dictated my future. And I was just done with that.
