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Oh, hey, look; I’m such a hipster I was avoiding promotions before it was cool. I’ve worked in the industry for nearly 25 years. I’ve pushed back against every

Oh, hey, look; I’m such a hipster I was avoiding promotions before it was cool. I’ve worked in the industry for nearly 25 years. I’ve pushed back against every attempt to promote me into lead or manager type roles. I’ll happily work as an individual contributor until I retire. One of the things that did me in was working insane hours (like 80 hour weeks) to get a project done on time. It was completed on time. My thanks was a satisfactory on my yearly review. When I pushed back on my manager, he said sorry, I deserved it, but they were required to give a certain percentage satisfactory and he had had to give the exceptional review to someone else. That is when I learned that the whole system is rigged. That was about 15 years ago. I’ve been coasting ever since.

lastdong 4y ago
The ridiculous bell curve… I was also quite surprised early on my career. I was asked to rate my colleagues, when I said they were all top performers, as we had such a tight team (we could really depend on each other) and it was a very homogeneous group skill wise, my manager presented me “the bell curve”. I couldn’t really grasp it, context wise it made no sense. I thought things were changing a bit: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/02/19/the-myth-of-the-bell-curve-look-for-the-hyper-performers/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/02/19/the-myth-... My take on work is have fun (yes, I can do some extra hours now and then), never neglecting physical and mental health.
- plasticchris 4y ago
  So they are saying the hiring process is no better than selection at random from the population?
criddell 4y ago
If I’m ever running a company that does annual reviews, I’m also going to have underlings review their managers.
- lupire 4y ago
  Google luck making them feel safe enough to be honest.
  - neilv 4y ago
    Freudian slip? :) (I recall hearing of both manager reviews and pyschological safety emphasis at Google.)
  - kibwen 4y ago
    There's no reason that managers can't be below their reports on the hierarchy of authority.
    - Kinrany 4y ago
      The main reason is that someone needs to make decisions about hiring, firing and negotiating salary
      - DangitBobby 4y ago
        Someone also needs to make that decision about managers. Might as well be their peers who they manage.
- danaris 4y ago
  This should be standard practice—not just managers, but also other people at all levels that they interact with on a regular basis. It's called a 360° review.
  - benhurmarcel 4y ago
    My company has this. I’ve never seen someone give a bad review to a colleague on there. They’re nothing to gain and a lot to lose.
- irrational 4y ago
  We have those. They are meaningless. I don’t believe for a second they are anonymous, and most managers don’t have many direct reports. They can figure out who is talking smack pretty easily. And, there are no upsides to being seen as a complainer/troublemaker. Better to just quit and move on if you get a bad manager.
neilv 4y ago
> When I pushed back on my manager, he said sorry, I deserved it, but they were required to give a certain percentage satisfactory and he had had to give the exceptional review to someone else. In some organizations, the manager could've urgently worked up the chain of command, that some performance review plan had, er, unintended consequences. If that was the situation. (The organization might've had a plan for raises that they could quickly reformulate to have the same cost but better morale and retention outcomes. Or this might've been their way to quietly prepare for layoffs, or to implement some awful stack-ranking practice. Or maybe a consultant, golfing buddy, or someone who wanted some change credited to themself... proposed some questionable HR practice. Or, if your manager wasn't being truthful, it could be that there was some reason that they or someone higher up thought/wanted you to get a lower rating, but manager didn't want to tell you that, so they blamed it on the curve.)
TheCapeGreek 4y ago
I think I'm headed in the same direction as you only 5 years in. In 2022 I pursued a Tech Lead role heavily and was rewarded with it. Then I got burned out from the immense effort to get there and the subsequent new onslaught of pressures and responsibilities. I quit the company about 6 months into the TL role after being forced to deliver a botched project to meet an arbitrary deadline. I still don't think I've recovered from the experience - my team was pretty great and the tech was healthy, but the management surrounding all this really put me off redoing this for a long time, if ever. I phrase it in this way: I can no longer deliver 100% of my "personal excellence" to my employer. I "selfishly" want a good chunk, ideally most of it, to myself for my own pursuit and life enjoyment.
- hallway_monitor 4y ago
  Sorry to hear about your experience. Tech lead was very enjoyable for me for five years. I recommend you find a better company and make it clear that made-up timelines by project managers are just that. Adjusting expectations is much easier than working 80 hour weeks.
  - TheCapeGreek 4y ago
    Thank you. Unfortunately it was a CEO made up timeline :(

lastdong 4y ago

The ridiculous bell curve… I was also quite surprised early on my career. I was asked to rate my colleagues, when I said they were all top performers, as we had such a tight team (we could really depend on each other) and it was a very homogeneous group skill wise, my manager presented me “the bell curve”. I couldn’t really grasp it, context wise it made no sense. I thought things were changing a bit: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/02/19/the-myth-of-the-bell-curve-look-for-the-hyper-performers/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/02/19/the-myth-... My take on work is have fun (yes, I can do some extra hours now and then), never neglecting physical and mental health.

plasticchris 4y ago
So they are saying the hiring process is no better than selection at random from the population?

criddell 4y ago

If I’m ever running a company that does annual reviews, I’m also going to have underlings review their managers.

lupire 4y ago
Google luck making them feel safe enough to be honest.
- neilv 4y ago
  Freudian slip? :) (I recall hearing of both manager reviews and pyschological safety emphasis at Google.)
- kibwen 4y ago
  There's no reason that managers can't be below their reports on the hierarchy of authority.
  - Kinrany 4y ago
    The main reason is that someone needs to make decisions about hiring, firing and negotiating salary
    - DangitBobby 4y ago
      Someone also needs to make that decision about managers. Might as well be their peers who they manage.
danaris 4y ago
This should be standard practice—not just managers, but also other people at all levels that they interact with on a regular basis. It's called a 360° review.
- benhurmarcel 4y ago
  My company has this. I’ve never seen someone give a bad review to a colleague on there. They’re nothing to gain and a lot to lose.
irrational 4y ago
We have those. They are meaningless. I don’t believe for a second they are anonymous, and most managers don’t have many direct reports. They can figure out who is talking smack pretty easily. And, there are no upsides to being seen as a complainer/troublemaker. Better to just quit and move on if you get a bad manager.

neilv 4y ago

> When I pushed back on my manager, he said sorry, I deserved it, but they were required to give a certain percentage satisfactory and he had had to give the exceptional review to someone else. In some organizations, the manager could've urgently worked up the chain of command, that some performance review plan had, er, unintended consequences. If that was the situation. (The organization might've had a plan for raises that they could quickly reformulate to have the same cost but better morale and retention outcomes. Or this might've been their way to quietly prepare for layoffs, or to implement some awful stack-ranking practice. Or maybe a consultant, golfing buddy, or someone who wanted some change credited to themself... proposed some questionable HR practice. Or, if your manager wasn't being truthful, it could be that there was some reason that they or someone higher up thought/wanted you to get a lower rating, but manager didn't want to tell you that, so they blamed it on the curve.)

TheCapeGreek 4y ago

I think I'm headed in the same direction as you only 5 years in. In 2022 I pursued a Tech Lead role heavily and was rewarded with it. Then I got burned out from the immense effort to get there and the subsequent new onslaught of pressures and responsibilities. I quit the company about 6 months into the TL role after being forced to deliver a botched project to meet an arbitrary deadline. I still don't think I've recovered from the experience - my team was pretty great and the tech was healthy, but the management surrounding all this really put me off redoing this for a long time, if ever. I phrase it in this way: I can no longer deliver 100% of my "personal excellence" to my employer. I "selfishly" want a good chunk, ideally most of it, to myself for my own pursuit and life enjoyment.

hallway_monitor 4y ago
Sorry to hear about your experience. Tech lead was very enjoyable for me for five years. I recommend you find a better company and make it clear that made-up timelines by project managers are just that. Adjusting expectations is much easier than working 80 hour weeks.
- TheCapeGreek 4y ago
  Thank you. Unfortunately it was a CEO made up timeline :(