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I just got my annual review and for the 4th year in a row, no changes. I'm still "meeting expectations" but apparently not deserving of even a crumb of the millions in additional profits I've brought in. I am damn sure not going to work as hard going forward when working hard doesn't even lead to a positive outcome. I may not control the scope or even volume of work assigned to me, but I do control the pace and why bother working faster/harder for nothing?

At a past company, we originally had a fairly flat org structure. Jr, Mid, Sr, for the ICs. It worked, and everyone was happy. Eventually they brought in some new leadership from one of the big tech companies, and the new leadership brought a levels system. Suddenly we went from a large and flat org, to having all sorts of letters and numbers for levels. And none of the existing staff was promoted to the new levels, they just got moved to the equivalent, while the new leadership hired their own people to the higher eschelons. This already damaged morale, because you had new E6 and E7 or whatever engineers who didn't know their way around the codebase at all, while an E2 or E3 was having to do everything.

Eventually they promoted a few of the original engineering staff. I was told during one of these promotions cycles that I just barely missed the promotion targets. I asked for concrete metrics of what I could improve on, and was given a few vague and nebulous answers. I worked on these, even though they lacked definition. Come the next promotion cycle, I was, once again, passed up. When asked for clarification, I received more vague, nebulous answers. I was assured that I was going to get it the next round, and they'd be doing promotion cycles more than annually.

They kind of kept their word: promotions cycles started happening every 6 months. But the next cycle came through, and once again I was left behind. So this time, instead of asking for clarification, I just started looking for a new job, and handed in a letter of resignation a few weeks later. Upon handing in the letter, I was told "oh we were going to promote you next week!"

I wasn't born yesterday, so I told them thanks but no thanks.


>At a past company, we originally had a fairly flat org structure. Jr, Mid, Sr, for the ICs. It worked, and everyone was happy. Eventually they brought in some new leadership from one of the big tech companies, and the new leadership brought a levels system. Suddenly we went from a large and flat org, to having all sorts of letters and numbers for levels. And none of the existing staff was promoted to the new levels, they just got moved to the equivalent, while the new leadership hired their own people to the higher eschelons. This already damaged morale, because you had new E6 and E7 or whatever engineers who didn't know their way around the codebase at all, while an E2 or E3 was having to do everything.

This is exactly what has happened. I've had 6 different reporting structures in the 6 years I've worked there. So much leadership change and more levels to the pyramid added. I was promoted the first/only time after my first year and a half--for something that has scaled exponentially since then and I still manage individually despite other teams who co-manage the system being given 8 more employees.

>They kind of kept their word: promotions cycles started happening every 6 months. But the next cycle came through, and once again I was left behind. So this time, instead of asking for clarification, I just started looking for a new job, and handed in a letter of resignation a few weeks later. Upon handing in the letter, I was told "oh we were going to promote you next week!"

Yep, I was part of the original 3 on the team. Only one has been promoted, the other left, and I am still in the same position. Even though the promo cycle has been increased, it's no different. I am 95% sure that my manager didn't even read my self-evaluation because he specifically asked for more metrics and that's what the first bullet point of my self-evaluation had.


Sadly I think its a fairly common approach. I later found out that I was passed over for promotions because a manager two or three levels removed from me didn't like that I pushed back on an unsound architectural decision. Said architectural decision was rammed through, and eventually blew up and got egg on several people's faces.

That sucks. The following is unsolicited stuff you probably already know - feel free to ignore.

I would heavily suggest speaking frankly about this with your manager or even going above their head if needed to ensure someone hears and acknowledges this. With your review in hand and any other additional info that can help back you up.

Ask what you need to focus on to secure a substantial Y raise/promotion and bonus etc. over the next X months and work towards that, keeping management updated as things progress. Probably have specific numbers for X and Y to mention as targets.


Thanks and appreciate it.

I did try that last year but it honestly went no where. I work on a financial system at a fintech company but I am on the finance side and my managers and above have never even logged into the system so they don't understand, appreciate, or really have interest in it. All they hear about are breaks in data, or some trivial error (99% caused by the bank or employee inputting a payment incorrectly, etc.) so they hear more negative feedback which I think biases them instead of them understanding that the failure rate is less than 1% and when you have 50,000 payments there's going to always be something that goes wrong--it could be as simple as the date. I implemented a change that allowed us to invest more funds and added almost 10 figures in interest income, but I'm not sure anyone but my manager even knows that. I ultimately blame my manager, he's old and useless and seems to be unmotivated to deliver anything for his direct reports.


Ouch, maybe hopefully there is someone else not directly above you but somewhere off to the side that can understand the value you bring, it may be worth fishing around for other managers/directors/?? to adopt the project if it isn't being managed and resourced properly.

Good luck either way!


We're going to have to wait until Boomers age out to get any form of common sense government. They've absolutely been the most damaging generation and will leave a wake of destruction for future generations to recover (or not) from.

Waiting doesn't work; ask me how I know :-) (I voted with my feet instead: it only takes ~2 years to learn a language)

Actual substantive comment:

My personal theory (looking from this side of the Atlantic) is that ICE got weaponised in this format precisely because the US Military wanted no part of thuggery, eg this 2020 memo: https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/CJCS%20Memo%20to%20...

Is this a reasonable theory?


I think that's a reasonable theory. Trump had rough experiences (i.e. was not obeyed) by Secretaries of Defense during his first term. He needs his personally loyal armed force because of that. Firing a lot of military leadership is also probably part of that.

Interesting, where did you move?

Switzerland. Politics has gotten more polarised away from the centre towards the extremes here as well, but it's still a long way from a two-party state: https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin.ch/en/political-parti...

How do you know^W^W^W did you find out? (Taking your ancestor suggestion)

I'm old enough to have seen that as the old bigots died off, young bigots replaced them.

Waiting is an excuse to do nothing. That's the loser's path.

Believe it or not, gen-x is the only age group with a favorable opinion of ICE.

The way out of this is with vigorous antifascism today. Not waiting.


Anyone who is a little bigger ever noticed how it doesn't really matter what size you buy because after a few washes they all shrink down to the same size? Makes me think it's the same amount of fabric being used so the shirt even if it's sold as a bigger size, ultimately reverts back to another size over time.


And when supply catches up, overdoses will spike because addicts tolerance will have decreased.


Resale values are trash, motion sickness is terrible, electrical rates are going up, and it's a pain in the ass to travel long distance and wait to recharge constantly. I think EVs have hit that saturation point where everyone who wanted one has bought one and now some people are going back to other options. Also Elon hasn't exactly remained neutral so that probably makes it even harder since it seems like there is significant overlap between Tesla's potential customer base and his political opposition.


> I think EVs have hit that saturation point where everyone who wanted one has bought one

I don't think so. In my immediate family we've got a combined six cars and one EVs. If we all had to replace our cars today we'd probably be looking at 4/6 EVs. But cars have long lives, and none of our cars are slated for imminent replacement.


It seems anti-free speech. If the same thing were done via physical media, would we still support this? I am definitely no fan of data brokers, but I also am no fan or suppressing speech. This seems like the equivalent of banning old phone books before the internet.


The equivalent is that you could ask to be removed from the phone book.


I guess, but even that I don't think I'd support making that a legal requirement. If it's public data I have no problem with it being searchable on the internet. I know that's not always convenient but I think to do anything different starts to set bad legal precedents which will not be in favor of the public.


It's the latter. They'll send a wire.


Hundreds of comments and the only one speaking the truth is downvoted. Bari Weiss is unqualified and the only reason she was put into this position is to be a useful idiot for Israel.


Ah but it’s the best outcome for Israel so they can now suppress videos from Gaza.


They botched it entirely. If they made it for $40k even if it only got 50 miles of range, they could have sold these. Instead they priced themselves out of the market. It's a clear example of the Innovator's dilemma, but now instead of cannibalizing their own market they'll just let it slip away to Tesla.


Tesla isn’t taking the market with the Cybertruck, they also are letting it slip away. GM seems poised to take most advantage if they stay the course.


Toyota should make a hybrid plug in single Tacoma. They could own the market if they did that.


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