Comment by hinkley

I was thinking about this the other day and how it's played out for me and some of my coworkers.

We were at a place, like some I've been at before, where there were essentially no speculative promotions. They didn't promote you to Level N when they were sure you could do the job, they promoted you after you had already been doing it. Most promotion announcements came with an "I thought you already were" tacked onto many of the congratulations.

Let's say you have levels 1-5. You have a person Tom who is a level 3 but is working at a consistent 3.8. The interpretation of 'exceeds expectations' is pretty tricky here and IMO largely contributes to the fuckery. You have another person Harry who just got promoted to 3, and is operating at a 3.1.

If Harry and Tom turned in identical work for the year, they should both get Meets Expectations, because they both performed at a 3.1 out of 3, which is barely more than you expect of them. But the problem is that if Tom has been a 3.8 for two years, you're going to expect that Tom '24 does at least as much as Tom '23 did. If Tom turns in a 3.9 this year, he deserves an Exceeds, but he's going to get a Meets or Exceeds because he's only improved a little. If he manages to squeak out a 4.0 he also deserves a promotion. But at many places he's not going to get either of those unless he makes a stink, and doing so puts him farther down the list come layoff time.

If they both turn in a 3.4 you're going to give Harry a raise and PIP Tom, which is shitty behavior.

The whole thing isn't based on objectivity it's based on negging employees. Convince them they aren't awesome and you don't need them, pay them like they're expendable even if they're keeping the wheels on.