Same here. I believe I’ve had two, possibly three “mentors” like this. Except instead of mentors they were managers and their managers. Two in particular were

Same here. I believe I’ve had two, possibly three “mentors” like this. Except instead of mentors they were managers and their managers. Two in particular were only a few months ago and it still confuses me if I think about it. They did every single thing you mentioned, mostly in private, no written record of any of it, moving goal posts, sometimes really scraping the barrel when looking for negative feedback. Sometimes it would be in public too - really petty stuff. Sometimes it was basically “Oh, you’ve forgotten that one particular API of the framework we know you haven’t had to use for over a year? Fuck you, you are incompetent.” I’m starting to think I was hired specifically to work on all the projects no one else wanted to do, while dangling the interesting projects like a carrot. I too am now extremely suspicious of any one on one arrangements - by nature they are specially designed to favour the organisation without fair representation for the employee their are victimising.