Comment by krisoft

The best ever advice I received from my dad, maybe the only advice he ever gave me, was exactly what you are writing here.

It was a few days before my first day at elementary school. He told me that teachers very quickly put people into little boxes. “The good students” vs the “troublemakers”. If you end up in the first basically no matter what you do they will see your output in a more positive light. They will forgive your mistakes as “momentary lapses”. If you are in the second category no matter what you do they will see your work in a negative light. If you do well that will be because you got lucky, or because you cheated. Or so they will think. And how they feel about you will affect your grades, your everyday, and your opportunities. And this is completely and utterly unfair, but this is how it is. You can’t change it, but you can learn to use it to your advantage.

So i put in some extra effort to the first few days of elementary school and coasting on that ever since. ;)

Later as i got older i learned that managers work the same way. Obviously it doesn’t mean that one can completely neglect the actual work, but one’s manager’s (and manager’s manager’s) perception is paramount.