About a year ago, I wrote a piece entitled “When You’re Up For a Promotion, But Don’t Want It…”. In it, I discussed the pros and cons to accepting it, but also ways to turn down a promotion professionally, as well as the possible repercussions of doing so.

Now, a year later, it seems that that highly theoretical piece could be garnering evidence at work.

Earlier in the summer, two of my supervisors came up to me with, for lack of a better way of putting it, a proposition. They wanted to offer me a minor promotion.

But there was a problem: they could not offer me the minor promotion. Or, at least, they couldn’t offer it then.

The reason they could not offer it was because the person who was currently in that role was, well, currently in that role. As management continued to witness my excellent work ethic, continual learning of different products and engagement with customers and staff, the other individual in question seemed to become complacent or forgetful in some of the duties of his supervisory role of which, after receiving verbal warnings, he was written up for. In addition to the fear of his job on the line, this young man was additionally diagnosed with a heart condition that he took extra care to remedy along with the newfound stress of his job being on the line.

In essence: my potential promotion was contingent on watching a colleague fall. As much as a promotion would have looked great on my resume for future positions–not to mention the most minute of pay bumps–I could not help but be supportive of my colleague on the sales floor and, to his credit, he did very well to bring him out of that rut and keep his job.

Fast forward to this fall: one supervisor transferred–much to his disgust–to another store, having been entrusted to bringing it back up to the standards of the store he left. My colleague joined him for a couple of weeks as his leading merchandiser, filling shelves and restocking items that had been left hidden either in the warehouse or the aisle overheads. Together, they merchandised over 300 items that were left empty before.

As this was happening, a new proposition emerged for the same position, except it was contingent on the other guy’s decision to either accept a new position as a merchandising supervisor for that other store.

On his first day back–not knowing that management had approached me with the possible promotion–he explain to me everything he considered when making his decision to either accept or reject the offer, from the long commute to the higher stress environment to his own cardiac health. He was even reading the entire situation at that other store as well as between the lines, seeing that the manager there was very unhappy and believed that he–the main reason he would have even considered a position over there–would be leaving for a new job as soon as it was offered, leaving him to someone he may not trust.

As of the writing of this post, I have not learned of any official decision. But based on that simple conversation, odds are that it’s not going to happen.

And, despite another bump in my journey of either trying to move up or move out, I’m ok with his decision. Things happen for a reason, and this one conversation showed me not only that we were both on the same page about that proposition, but also that he has grown in just a matter of months, and that there is a leader in this dead man walking after all.