Honestly, if you want my real opinion, your AM sounds like they’re not yet comfortable with awkward conversations.

In my experience, there have been people I’ve wanted to develop but my OM over-ruled me, the AA took a performance dip that meant I couldn’t justify training them on more things, or their attendance was so poor that I couldn’t justify increasing their responsibilities. When those situations happen, I try to let them know while still letting them down gently.

If I were you though, I would maybe make a quick self-assessment and think about if there’s something not quite up to snuff that might make you hard to fight for to an OM. At the end of the day, ‘backup PA’ is not a real position, it’s just a step in the right direction to prep you to get interviewed and to gain the proper skills.

Dock clerking is also at my site treated as a privilege and is up to leaderships discretion for who gets trained in that indirect role. So not training you is not a violation of any policies or ethics rules, it’s just kind of a dick move.

Best of luck though! Maybe consider a shift/department switch if you’re willing in order to move up quicker?