Hello,
There is a million details to this. My...friend works in public service and is performing a job historically done by two people. When his coworker quit over a year ago, management told him that if he did both jobs for a year, he would be favorably reviewed for a promotion. My friend had meetings about every two months with boss to determine if he was still on track, until boss requested they be three months apart. In the second meeting, my friend was told he would be a "shoo in" for the position provided he continued to meet goals documented in a shared Google doc with my friend, boss, and boss's boss. The boss's boss contributed a few bullet points to complete. My friend faithfully performed two jobs and each meeting he was told by his boss that he was on track.
Right before the year was up, my friend told his boss that the year was almost up. The boss told him to that he needed to be more autonomous and to gather up all of the things he took care of for a meeting with the boss's boss. After the year was up, the boss and boss's boss met up and afterwards boss told my friend he wouldn't get a promotion since he wasn't qualified, the position didn't exist, he didn't have the authority to promise him a promotion, and there were too many hoops to jump through. They also mentioned that the position's job description isn't fully met by my friend, despite it not being available until midway through the year by my friend's request, and not referenced by boss.
The Google Doc documenting a summary of each meeting marks the bullet points of the boss's boss, and the grammar revision by boss one sentence away from "shoo in". They've had access to it since the second meeting. HR seems to be aware of the issue/Google Doc and helped give my friend's boss the reasons that he couldn't be promoted.
Naturally my friend is very angry. He lives in California but isn't sure if there is a legal foundation for...anything. The only thing he is getting out of this is that this may not be his forever job and HR has no idea how to represent employees. His boss continues to expect him to perform both jobs right before the busiest time of the year. The rest of the small department predating my friend starting two jobs believes he is doing two jobs and are angry at boss. My friend is concerned that in the unlikely chance there is legal foundation, it will burn his chances of moving up in the company, but he is no longer willing to perform both jobs for no reason which will cause management to label him as a failure and not to be promoted for a long time. One of his coworkers advised him to write a short summary of what happened, write down questions and call a meeting with his boss and boss's boss to ask him what the frowny face happened. Someone else told him he needs more bargaining power and to start applying for jobs from different employers.
I am unqualified to give my friend good advice. Just for the record, he is somewhat mustachnian and has no personal debt. I told him I had a secret pipe to quietly successful smart people who have better advice than me. Thanks in advance.