Imagine starting a new job where everyone else has been working there years longer than you have. Some have even been working there for decades. If a supervisor was retiring, would you consider applying for their job, or would you assume there’s no point because someone else will get the job, someone with more experience?

In this story, one man is in that situation, and he’s not sure what to do. He knows at least one of this coworkers wouldn’t be happy if he got the supervisor job, but should he let that stop him?

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

WIBTA if I apply to a supervisor job “too soon?”

I’m in the legal field. Been on the job for 17 months.

George and Tom have been there over a quarter century! Ann has been there 6 years. Jessica and Melody have been there 5 years.

Our supervisor who’s been with the office for 30 years is retiring at the end of the year and his position is up for grabs.

He realizes he doesn’t have as much experience as the other people he works with who could apply.

I’m good at my job and as objective as I can be, I clearly haven’t had the quantity of experience as my peers on my team but the quality of my experience has been up there.

I’ve been put on high profile cases involving sensitive subject matter just like the rest of them and some colleagues outside of my team have been asking me if I’ll apply.

Granted, the coworkers outside my particular division don’t fully understand the inner workings of what my teammates and I do and how we operate.

He’s kind of talking to Tom about the situation.

Rumors are floating around that the head of the firm won’t bump the pay for next supervisor of my team.

George and Tom have expressed reluctance to apply but Tom has made repeated remarks about how he’ll he content with whomever is supervisor….as long as it’s either George or himself.

I tried to test the water by saying “so and so had even asked ME if I was going to apply, isn’t that wild”

And Tom immediately replies with “I’m not saying you shouldn’t apply but it just wouldn’t make sense and I’ll leave it at that”. Kind of gatekeeper-ish but sort of makes sense.

Nobody can stop him from applying, and if he applies, that doesn’t mean he’ll automatically get the job. Honestly, it doesn’t hurt to apply.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who rejects a low contract offer and leaves the company instead.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

There’s no harm in applying.

Here’s a vote for applying.

This person shares what happened when they got a promotion.

Nobody thinks it would be a bad idea to apply for the promotion.

Realistically, he’s probably not going to get the job, but maybe he would. That’s up for whoever’s making the hiring decision to decide. You never know what will happen. It could be that the more experienced employees don’t want the job, but it sounds like OP does want the job. That right there might be one reason he would get hired.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who just let clients complain after her boss refused to approve overtime.