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We have performance reviews not annually, but every few years. My last review, the head of our division got really angry with me and gave me a very negative, p

We have performance reviews not annually, but every few years. My last review, the head of our division got really angry with me and gave me a very negative, punitive review. What I am infuriated about is that never in that few years did I receive any negative feedback, and I tried to do exactly what our subdivision had decided as a group to do, and what the immediate superior had wanted. My last review was glowing, perfect. So I go from a perfect review to being treated like a failure, fireable, with no negative feedback in the interim. Imagine if you in your area had discussed things, come to consensus decisions, you were willing to do everything asked of you, and then four years later someone higher up singles you out and yells at you for not doing what you're supposed to etc. As if you've been getting feedback that whole time. The worst part of this is that I know someone in our area is close friends with this division head and basically complains about everyone except one person in our area. So now I have this negative review, as if I were just being lazy, even impaired in my duties, and not doing my part when the whole time I just thought I was doing what we were supposed to. It's depressing as hell to me, and also angering.

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
It could have been a positioning move to justify firing down the road. I freelance now but when I went through 9-5 I found the key to positive outcomes was always tied to confidence. The confidence I tried to harness cane in a form of acting like I was the boss with nobody above me. I found that my own bosses saw this as a strength and never questioned my judgement. Even when someone came back with logical counterpoints I'd stick up for my opinion very aggressively. I can't imagine working in a place that yells at me - that would be the final nail in the coffin where I would that that person everything I think of them and their inaptitude to "manage". I guess that's why I no longer punch the clock.
- Mandatum 8y ago
  > Even when someone came back with logical counterpoints I'd stick up for my opinion very aggressively. I hate this so much. I hate it even more, because it's mostly true that it works. YMMV, and I'm talking of non-technical organisations or organisation where tech is a cost-centre rather than value-add. Those who don't fully understand it (it being whatever technical disagreement or choice made), which is usually the majority, will side with you. The remainder are usually people who can see that the organisation is structured this way and either give up out of apathy or leave for greener pastures. If someone literally yells at me, I'm out. Notice in that day, usually within the hour. If the organisation is willing to allow that behaviour, it's usually toxic. If I'm on contract (which I always am now), my opinion within that organisation will no longer be respected. Notice of non-renewal immediately.
  - robocat 8y ago
    Do you tell your clients before taking on work about your requirements, or is it first strike you're out?
    - eropple 8y ago
      I alternately contract and consult, and I wouldn't think it necessary to tell a client that, if they endorse yelling as interaction, I'm not sticking around. That's normal-people stuff--they should already know Because healthy environments don't do that.
      - robocat 8y ago
        To be clear: I wasn't endorsing yelling. I was just wondering how consultants pre-empt negative results. Surely some clients do yell, and presumably if they think it is acceptable to yell, they would be surprised at an abrupt end to a contract!
        Mandatum 8y ago
        No I don't tell clients that up front - although I don't think it's necessary to. It's like saying if someone assaults me, or my shortcomings are going to be publicly broadcasted throughout the company, I'd tell them that's not something I'm okay with. Nobody should expect either of those things to happen. On being yelled at, it's only happened once - and I'm pretty sure the person doing the yelling was having a bit of a breakdown. Getting yelled at is a very strange thing in a work environment.
        eropple 8y ago
        Those are very fireable clients, though.
danek 8y ago
That really sucks. But also what's the point of even having reviews it if it's going to be years in between them? There doesn't seem to be any upside, but lots of downside
- mdip 8y ago
  > what's the point of even having reviews if it's going to be years in between them? Unfortunately, I would bet the point is to do exactly the kinds of things that "really sucks" which this individual encountered. I'd hazard a guess that the multi-year review situation isn't consistent, either. It probably is decided "it's review time" when management has decided things aren't going well, so they use the reviews to crap all over staff. I wouldn't be surprised if this review cycle comes immediately before a round of layoffs/redundancies, as well.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    That sounds like Seagull Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_manager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_manager
- lskadf93idk 8y ago
  The whole experience in hindsight made me realize that annual reviews would be a lot better. Although I deeply empathize with the idea that performance reviews in general are kind of misguided, because you should be getting accurate feedback continuously.
toomanybeersies 8y ago
I had something similar happen at my old company, an 8 person startup. I was more or less asked to quit (coincidently I was planning to hand my notice in that day anyway) by the CEO. Never once had the CEO actually pulled me aside or talked to me about his perceived problems with me. He was perfectly happy with the quantity and quality of work I put out, but apparently there were cultural and attitude issues or something. I was supposed to have a performance review/catchup every 3 months, I was very low contact with the CEO as he worked remotely and traveled a lot. I had never heard any problems from my supervisor before this final meeting with the CEO. It was pretty shitty when he started bringing up things that he had problems with that happened 3 or 6 months ago. Things that I had never gotten more than a snarky slack message about. Maybe if I had had those reviews, I would've worked on whatever issues he had, I may have been a happier employee and not wanted to quit, and he may have ended up with a nicer employee he didn't want to fire. It really pissed me off and unfortunately (for both of us, really), I never got to tell him how I felt about the whole situation, as I wanted to get a good reference for my next job (which incidentally pays double what I was earning).
- saltybytes 8y ago
  Same here but different reason. I worked in Software Engineering for a financial organization when I announced the arrival of my first child to head of HR (Monday). My performance review was scheduled for Tuesday but my manager postponed to Friday. I was fired (because of my baby) that Friday by head of HR instead of sitting down in 1-1 with my manager or CTO. They just didn't have the guts to tell me that my productivity will drop b/c of lack of sleep, etc. Shitty move but lesson learned: don't announce the due date of your unborn child BEFORE a performance review! Better don't announce it at all if you wanna keep your job.
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    I take it that in the USA, pregnancy discrimination isn't illegal, or at least isn't for the father? Terrible move from the company either way. Firing people is expensive, first you lose a whole lot of institutional knowledge, then hiring a person is expensive (especially if you use a recruiter), then you have to train a new person up, which takes about 3 months to get them up to speed. The sensible option is to discuss options, such as working reduced hours (e.g. only afternoons) for a time. Of course, in many developed countries (the USA excluded), paid parental leave is legally guaranteed or even mandatory.
letsgetphysITal 8y ago
How long ago was this? You could take it up with someone higher up the food chain, providing you can demonstrate your successes and prove the review is unjust. A decent company doesn't want to lose talented, hard working employees through the malicious actions of middle managers.
misja111 8y ago
Sounds like it's time to move on. Every once in a while you'll run into some incompentent manager like that. The best thing to do is look for better opportunities elsewhere, move on and never look back.
Melchizedek 8y ago
"Review" sounds official and somehow based on a methodology, but in reality it's just the subjective feelings of some dude. A dude that often has to pretend that he/she understands the technology, what is difficult or not, and who is doing good work. As you have noticed, you can output the same quality of work and it can be seen as very good or not so good at different times, or with different people, because feelings.
- nojvek 8y ago
  > because feelings That is so true. Probably why people leave every couple of years. I hate performance reviews. They try to be objective and yet so many personal feelings involved. Finding a good manager is hard. Someone who understands tech and gives frequent objective feedback. That’s really really hard. Most managers I’ve seen go into Management because they don’t like coding. They then want to be far away from it. That creates problems because they don’t understand why things are constantly regressing. They blame it on their engineers and start handing out shitty reviews when the actual problem was there is just a metric ton of code debt that they don’t want to hear about. The other thing is they like being people managers. All the way up to Group managers (managers of managers). They truly enjoy re-orging people around. I guess that’s how they feel important. But they forget it’s the product that matters. As the org gets bigger, less and less people actually give a shit about the product as a whole. I have yet to find a manager that takes code debt and product seriously. I’m on my Manager #10. If you are a manager, I kindly urge you to listen both to your customers and your engineers. Get a reverse performance review. The world will be happier.
tvanantwerp 8y ago
Same thing has happened to me before. I was in a funk about it for a while, but it gets easier--especially if you polish the 'ole resume and start looking for alternatives.

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago

It could have been a positioning move to justify firing down the road. I freelance now but when I went through 9-5 I found the key to positive outcomes was always tied to confidence. The confidence I tried to harness cane in a form of acting like I was the boss with nobody above me. I found that my own bosses saw this as a strength and never questioned my judgement. Even when someone came back with logical counterpoints I'd stick up for my opinion very aggressively. I can't imagine working in a place that yells at me - that would be the final nail in the coffin where I would that that person everything I think of them and their inaptitude to "manage". I guess that's why I no longer punch the clock.

Mandatum 8y ago
> Even when someone came back with logical counterpoints I'd stick up for my opinion very aggressively. I hate this so much. I hate it even more, because it's mostly true that it works. YMMV, and I'm talking of non-technical organisations or organisation where tech is a cost-centre rather than value-add. Those who don't fully understand it (it being whatever technical disagreement or choice made), which is usually the majority, will side with you. The remainder are usually people who can see that the organisation is structured this way and either give up out of apathy or leave for greener pastures. If someone literally yells at me, I'm out. Notice in that day, usually within the hour. If the organisation is willing to allow that behaviour, it's usually toxic. If I'm on contract (which I always am now), my opinion within that organisation will no longer be respected. Notice of non-renewal immediately.
- robocat 8y ago
  Do you tell your clients before taking on work about your requirements, or is it first strike you're out?
  - eropple 8y ago
    I alternately contract and consult, and I wouldn't think it necessary to tell a client that, if they endorse yelling as interaction, I'm not sticking around. That's normal-people stuff--they should already know Because healthy environments don't do that.
    - robocat 8y ago
      To be clear: I wasn't endorsing yelling. I was just wondering how consultants pre-empt negative results. Surely some clients do yell, and presumably if they think it is acceptable to yell, they would be surprised at an abrupt end to a contract!
      - Mandatum 8y ago
        No I don't tell clients that up front - although I don't think it's necessary to. It's like saying if someone assaults me, or my shortcomings are going to be publicly broadcasted throughout the company, I'd tell them that's not something I'm okay with. Nobody should expect either of those things to happen. On being yelled at, it's only happened once - and I'm pretty sure the person doing the yelling was having a bit of a breakdown. Getting yelled at is a very strange thing in a work environment.
      - eropple 8y ago
        Those are very fireable clients, though.

danek 8y ago

That really sucks. But also what's the point of even having reviews it if it's going to be years in between them? There doesn't seem to be any upside, but lots of downside

mdip 8y ago
> what's the point of even having reviews if it's going to be years in between them? Unfortunately, I would bet the point is to do exactly the kinds of things that "really sucks" which this individual encountered. I'd hazard a guess that the multi-year review situation isn't consistent, either. It probably is decided "it's review time" when management has decided things aren't going well, so they use the reviews to crap all over staff. I wouldn't be surprised if this review cycle comes immediately before a round of layoffs/redundancies, as well.
- r00fus 8y ago
  That sounds like Seagull Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_manager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_manager
lskadf93idk 8y ago
The whole experience in hindsight made me realize that annual reviews would be a lot better. Although I deeply empathize with the idea that performance reviews in general are kind of misguided, because you should be getting accurate feedback continuously.

toomanybeersies 8y ago

I had something similar happen at my old company, an 8 person startup. I was more or less asked to quit (coincidently I was planning to hand my notice in that day anyway) by the CEO. Never once had the CEO actually pulled me aside or talked to me about his perceived problems with me. He was perfectly happy with the quantity and quality of work I put out, but apparently there were cultural and attitude issues or something. I was supposed to have a performance review/catchup every 3 months, I was very low contact with the CEO as he worked remotely and traveled a lot. I had never heard any problems from my supervisor before this final meeting with the CEO. It was pretty shitty when he started bringing up things that he had problems with that happened 3 or 6 months ago. Things that I had never gotten more than a snarky slack message about. Maybe if I had had those reviews, I would've worked on whatever issues he had, I may have been a happier employee and not wanted to quit, and he may have ended up with a nicer employee he didn't want to fire. It really pissed me off and unfortunately (for both of us, really), I never got to tell him how I felt about the whole situation, as I wanted to get a good reference for my next job (which incidentally pays double what I was earning).

saltybytes 8y ago
Same here but different reason. I worked in Software Engineering for a financial organization when I announced the arrival of my first child to head of HR (Monday). My performance review was scheduled for Tuesday but my manager postponed to Friday. I was fired (because of my baby) that Friday by head of HR instead of sitting down in 1-1 with my manager or CTO. They just didn't have the guts to tell me that my productivity will drop b/c of lack of sleep, etc. Shitty move but lesson learned: don't announce the due date of your unborn child BEFORE a performance review! Better don't announce it at all if you wanna keep your job.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  I take it that in the USA, pregnancy discrimination isn't illegal, or at least isn't for the father? Terrible move from the company either way. Firing people is expensive, first you lose a whole lot of institutional knowledge, then hiring a person is expensive (especially if you use a recruiter), then you have to train a new person up, which takes about 3 months to get them up to speed. The sensible option is to discuss options, such as working reduced hours (e.g. only afternoons) for a time. Of course, in many developed countries (the USA excluded), paid parental leave is legally guaranteed or even mandatory.

letsgetphysITal 8y ago

How long ago was this? You could take it up with someone higher up the food chain, providing you can demonstrate your successes and prove the review is unjust. A decent company doesn't want to lose talented, hard working employees through the malicious actions of middle managers.

misja111 8y ago

Sounds like it's time to move on. Every once in a while you'll run into some incompentent manager like that. The best thing to do is look for better opportunities elsewhere, move on and never look back.

Melchizedek 8y ago

"Review" sounds official and somehow based on a methodology, but in reality it's just the subjective feelings of some dude. A dude that often has to pretend that he/she understands the technology, what is difficult or not, and who is doing good work. As you have noticed, you can output the same quality of work and it can be seen as very good or not so good at different times, or with different people, because feelings.

nojvek 8y ago
> because feelings That is so true. Probably why people leave every couple of years. I hate performance reviews. They try to be objective and yet so many personal feelings involved. Finding a good manager is hard. Someone who understands tech and gives frequent objective feedback. That’s really really hard. Most managers I’ve seen go into Management because they don’t like coding. They then want to be far away from it. That creates problems because they don’t understand why things are constantly regressing. They blame it on their engineers and start handing out shitty reviews when the actual problem was there is just a metric ton of code debt that they don’t want to hear about. The other thing is they like being people managers. All the way up to Group managers (managers of managers). They truly enjoy re-orging people around. I guess that’s how they feel important. But they forget it’s the product that matters. As the org gets bigger, less and less people actually give a shit about the product as a whole. I have yet to find a manager that takes code debt and product seriously. I’m on my Manager #10. If you are a manager, I kindly urge you to listen both to your customers and your engineers. Get a reverse performance review. The world will be happier.

tvanantwerp 8y ago

Same thing has happened to me before. I was in a funk about it for a while, but it gets easier--especially if you polish the 'ole resume and start looking for alternatives.