Do you give bad reviews to your reportees just for the sake of it?
Posted by Inevitable_Rain8024@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 23 comments
In my company, all my ex managers that I have had usually felt like gave bad reviews to people just for the sake of it. For instance, I had a colleague who grew around 10x in just 1 year of being in the company and became a dependable employee, kind of the one they were searching for since 1-2 years. Still he did not get excellent feedbacks but also had some cons mentioned about him which made 0 sense.
casualfinderbot@reddit
? No good manager does that
Darkmayday@reddit
Some places are required to maintain a certain percentage in each category, with at least one category falling into either PIP or below expectations.
nine_zeros@reddit
These are systematically poor places to work at.
xlb250@reddit
It’s a common practice at large companies. I’ve never been bothered by it.
nine_zeros@reddit
In the recent past, slavery was also a common practice. Just being a common practice neither makes it right, nor elevates them from their shithole status.
xlb250@reddit
Sure but I’ve been chilling at stack ranked companies for many years. Usually the bar is 5-10% which leaves a ton of margin.
nine_zeros@reddit
Sure, this would make sense if you were in an objective competition where the goal is to outpace others. Let's talk again once a distant manager targets you for unknown reasons and throws you in that 5% bucket ok?
xlb250@reddit
I’ve been targeted before, but the reason wasn’t unknown to me. I accidentally or carelessly made them look bad on a key issue. Of course, none of this was in the paper trail. Manager was managed out before me, but I would have been fine either way.
As an experienced dev, can’t you just find another job if you don’t like your current one? Even in this market, it’s not that bad as long as you set realistic expectations. Pay will still be more than enough. I know from personal experience.
If you are the type that never feels like they have enough money to feel safe, then I can understand why this stack ranking bothers you. I know someone like this. You can find that stable job, but it won’t be mega TC. No one is entitled to both.
nine_zeros@reddit
Well, so you actually had a good manager that defended you and got penalized for it. And you seem fine with that. Most people have far too much self-worth to be ok with this kind of nonsense. It is ok if you like this Stockholm syndrome for yourself but recognize that most people are not ok with this.
That's what everyone is suggesting to OP. Just find another job. This current job is only suited to masochists and subservients.
Inevitable_Rain8024@reddit (OP)
Eh slavery is still a common practice if you work with Indian managers. They like their employees as a slave.
nine_zeros@reddit
Race aside, they want to control people with grading on a curve - it is a power given to someone above you in the org chart. A power that they are then forced to abuse systematically. Which is why these are systematically poor places to work at.
Life is too short to be a slave. You need to determine if you want to continue working in these companies and if you want to continue being their customers.
I have made my choices.
Darkmayday@reddit
No doubt
diablo1128@reddit
No. I give honest reviews of how I think people are doing based on my understanding of expectations.
roger_ducky@reddit
There are some managers that evaluate people not on what their reports did, but compare everyone to their preconceived idea of what a “good” employee is like. Anyone falling short of that gets a bad rating. Anyone that beats the pretend employee exceeds their expectation.
It’s not a good way to manage people. As you can see. Good managers recognize how someone was when they started and how much someone improved or not. Hopefully giving suggestions in enough time that you always at least get an acceptable performance unless you really stopped trying to improve.
kaisean@reddit
This is sociopathic behavior. Unfortunately, there is an impossible burden of proof placed on the employee so there's no way this can ever be proven.
rosenjcb@reddit
I give only good reviews even if I think the guy sucks ass at his job. Why give a corpo ammo to layoff/pip people?
ninetofivedev@reddit
Uh. No. This is fucking insane.
Hell, if anything I give people satisfactory reviews when they probably deserve bad ones.
metaphorm@reddit
> No idea what the management is thinking.
I don't know specifically, but a lot of the time this is driven by the "shit rolls down hill" dynamics where upper management pressures middle management to force people out of the company to generate the appearance of "accountability" for failures within the company.
Inevitable_Rain8024@reddit (OP)
Don't think they would want to do that with a star employee who always goes the extra mile. He recently did a critical project and secured a client for 200k USD/Year. I have a feeling they are just stupid at this point. we have around 50% attrition rate so also don't think they are even capable of laying people off.
Odd_Lettuce_7285@reddit
Sounds like nonsense you're conjuring up in your head.
Inevitable_Rain8024@reddit (OP)
Okay
GandolfMagicFruits@reddit
He'd be right to leave. FFS let your top performers know they're doing a good job.
joe-knows-nothing@reddit
No. Don't be a dick