Getting nowhere at work

LegacyUser

Hi
I have been in my present job about 5 years and feel like I'm getting absolutely nowhere. I'm just wondering what is the best plan of action to take?

To give some background I was hired in a "junior" position and for the first 2 years or so I was continually kept doing background work, not being given any real project work (the work is divided into new project work, and much less busy work on old products).

This work on old products was often *very* quiet with not much to do - it wasn't my choosing, I was never even considered for new work. The problem was during this time I had little or no contact with my manager (maybe once a month), and work was assigned to people very disproportionately i.e. certain people would get very big assignments, while others would get very little work at all.
Also because I never saw my manager or we never had meetings, it was quite hard to figure out what the others were doing at times (basically it was fairly isolating and hard to get a look in at all). What was worse was that the people that were assigned important tasks were ofter more junior to me and not necessarily more capable (this is an honest assessment).

This went on for a while until an anonymous complaint was made about me that I wasn't pulling my weight. This led to me being given an absolute bollicking by my manager and putting me back to square one in terms of progress at work (he is also a bit of a bully to cut long story short).

I can accept 100% that in the time I wasn't very busy I could have done more to help others, it's just that it's not as easy to impress when you don't have any main assignment to work on and you're not involved in the main work that the team is doing. Also the fact that it was done anonymously was hard to take because nothing was said to me beforehand and I was working quite hard on the things I had to do (there was no recognition of the work that I had done). Shortly afterwards the rest of the team were promoted to senior positions on the back of the work they had done on assignments.

Subsequently I was put on to a different project with a different supervisor where I was given work, and really worked my socks off. It was also my first real chance to prove myself so it was important for me personally.

The project went very well (for about a year) and the supervisor of this was very pleased. Unfortunately the manager giving the annual review (used for pay reviews, promotions etc) was still my old manager. In the HR system he actually transferred me to another manager, so he wouldn't have to review my work. The other manager didn't know a thing about what I was doing and gave me a very luke warm review.
In the review after that I was in the HR system under my actual manager again, but that time he just avoided me completely and didn't give me any review at all.

At the moment I am (thank god) under a new manager, who is very capable. It is a very different situation. The only problem is that I am worked off my feet (as I have been for the last two years). It takes me about an extra hour every day to finish what I have to do, no matter what time management I do. I can feel the strain on my heart.

My fear (if you like) is that this year again I will be passed over for promotion. It's not the end of the world but it's important to me after all the work I have done. Also it's important in terms of job security.

Is the best course of action here to just look for a better job? I cannot move at the moment because of personal commitments, but long term I would like to sort this out.
Thanks!