I Thought It Would Get Easier When I Got Promoted
May 13, 2025
For years, I kept my head down. As an AE in unscripted post, that’s how you survive. You learn the systems. You triple-check the exports. You chase down approvals without making anyone feel chased. And quietly, you tell yourself: “It’ll get better when I move up.”
Junior Editor. Maybe full Editor if I get lucky. Then I’ll have more say. More clarity. More air.
The Promotion Was Real—The Pressure Just Shifted
Eventually, I got the bump. The title changed. The tools got better. The stakes got higher. And for a minute, I thought: this is it. But then something strange happened. I realized I wasn’t carrying less. I was just carrying different. Less cut prep, more final delivery. Less media wrangling, more approval drama. Less chasing for files, more chasing for answers.
The bottlenecks moved, but they didn’t disappear. The system still felt like it was dragging behind the work. And I still went home feeling like I was behind on everything.
It wasn’t just about the role.
It was the structure.
When the System Is Broken, the Title Doesn’t Save You
That’s what no one tells you. You think you’ll graduate out of the mess. That once you have seniority, things will feel smoother. Cleaner. Managed. But what you learn quickly is: You don’t age out of broken systems. You just inherit more responsibility inside them. It’s like running a relay where the baton is a flaming Avid. You might hold it differently, but it still burns.
That realization hit hard. I had spent years trying to climb out of the fire, only to find the whole building was wired to smoke. So I stopped chasing title upgrades. And started asking better questions.
What Would It Look Like If This Wasn’t So Hard?
Not in a “let’s overhaul everything” way. Not in a “build your own platform” way. Just: what if the parts that wore us down the most… didn’t have to?
The late-night re-export because someone forgot to flag it for network. The transcript that gets emailed to three people, opened by one, and lost by the rest. The same VO correction request that bounces between Slack, email, and “Did you do this yet?” The deliverables checklist that still lives in someone’s head, or worse, their notes app.
That’s when I pivoted. I moved into post management with one goal: Make the job easier for the people doing the actual work.
What We Changed—For Us, Not Just the Org
Here’s what we put in place: not because it was shiny, but because it saved sanity.
✅ Clean Export Pipelines
We built workflows that took an approved internal cut and auto-routed it to network:
Re-labeled correctly
Uploaded to the right platform
Notified the right team
All without five emails and a Slack follow-up
No more bottlenecks where one forgotten link stalls delivery by a day.
✅ Streamlined Transcript & VO Workflows
Instead of passing files hand to hand and hoping nothing got dropped:
Transcripts were centralized, version-controlled, and accessible
VO pickup requests became tickets with clear handoffs
Every stakeholder saw what they needed—nothing more, nothing less
Less noise. More trust. No guesswork.
✅ Ticket-Based Requests for Repeats
We turned chaos into clarity by converting repeated requests into clean tickets:
“Can you upload that again?”
“Who has the latest script?”
“Where’s the timecard?”
Each one had a home, a trigger, and an owner. No more pinging four people just to find one asset.
What It Felt Like to Finally Breathe
I didn’t realize how heavy it had all been until I saw the difference.
Suddenly:
AEs stopped staying late “just to check one more thing”
Editors stopped tracking delivery dates on their own
Producers stopped texting at midnight asking “Is it up yet?”
People started trusting the process, because the process stopped relying on them to babysit it. It wasn’t perfect. But it was peaceful. And I’ll take peaceful over perfect any day.
If You’re Still Waiting for Things to Settle Down
If you’re telling yourself, “Once I get promoted, this will make more sense…” just know it might not. Not until the system changes. Not until the repeat stress gets replaced with repeatable structure. Not until clarity stops being the reward and starts being the default.
The good news? It’s possible. Because we stopped trying to muscle through, and we built what we wish we’d had back then.
Not just for leadership. For every AE, editor, and coordinator who’s still doing five jobs—and getting credit for one.