TIFU By costing myself a potential promotion to try and spare my co-workers feelings

For context, my co-worker has been with the company for 5 years. I’m 19 and he’s in his mid twenties. He has been gunning for this promotion to cashier supervisor for almost two years now, but management has refused to promote him, as he is one of the few people who know, and are good at working both positions at my job. He is a really nice guy and one of the people I am the closest with at my job, and someone I am proud to call my work friend.

However, after seeing him get passed up again when he asked for the promotion in January, I waited until February to ask for the same promotion. I have been with the company for about 6 months now, but I am the only one outside of him who has maintained our position within the company during this time, leading to me and him being the only ones qualified for this role. Even though I’m in college, I really wanted to guaranteed more hours, and the pay increase was just a minor bonus to being able to work more. My boss said he would be completely fine with giving me the promotion, he just had to talk to our regional manager first because he needs to approve all promotions.

Flash forward to today, where it was 2 days before I was going to figure out if I got it or not. My biggest concern with getting this promotion was how my friend was going to take it, since I knew this is something he had wanted a long time and was going to be a potential breaking point for him. So in my mind, it made sense to give him a heads up that it may happen, just so he isn’t blindsided and resentful towards me if I do get it so we don’t damage our friendship! As I told him this, he got way more upset in the moment than I initially thought, and said he was going to talk to my manager about it tomorrow.

I didn’t want them to get blindside, so I went ahead and gave them the heads up that I did this. My AGM didn’t even though I was being considered for this promotion in the first place (important for later). My GM and AGM immediately pulled him into the office to talk about the situation without me present. When we closed that day, I asked my coworker jokingly on a scale of 1-10 “how bad did I just shoot myself in the foot.” He left laughing just saying “I can’t say anything.” So I feel like it’s safe to say that ether I just cost myself that promotion, or I was never going to get it in the first place 😂

TL;DR: I tried to spare my friends feeling about me potentially getting a promotion and in the process more than likely cost myself that promotion. That or I was never going to get it in the first place and my boss was just getting my hopes up.