[HN Gopher] Unfortunate things about performance reviews
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       Unfortunate things about performance reviews
        
       Author : parsecs
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2021-02-19 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (rachelbythebay.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (rachelbythebay.com)
        
       | musicale wrote:
       | > Most people have no idea whether anyone is any good or not, and
       | so they just kind of go with whatever the default is
       | 
       | > there's very little direct connection between the quality (and
       | quantity, for that matter) of work done, and what happens in a
       | performance review at these places. It's more about your attitude
       | and how good you make your masters feel about you and that
       | attitude
       | 
       | A challenge in a typical R&D organization everyone is doing
       | different - and usually novel - things, so it's impossible to
       | compare performance directly (vs. on an assembly line where
       | people/robots may be repeating identical tasks, or in a course
       | where students are given identical assignments or exams.) Ratings
       | tend to be entirely subjective and non-comparable at best, and
       | completely arbitrary/random at worst. As the author notes, they
       | often are based on a combination of manager bias and employee
       | ingratiation effectiveness.
       | 
       | > everything you provide is at best a no-op and at worst a
       | negative, and there's never an upside to it
       | 
       | Matches my experience (both personal and observed) perfectly: at
       | their best, they are a useless waste of time; at their worst,
       | they provide perverse incentives and harm nearly everyone
       | involved as well as the company.
        
       | dilyevsky wrote:
       | Totally agree about not providing ammo and my personal philosophy
       | is if you, pardon my french, didn't have the balls to say it in-
       | person, you should not put it in writing on 360 review (or
       | whatever MBA name they use for this in your org). Especially when
       | it comes to peers or folks below you (doing that to higher ups is
       | just not smart to begin with).
       | 
       | It's kind of a delicate dance though because they try to twist
       | your arm with a "what can they improve?" section
        
       | cankut_orakcal wrote:
       | Kill your managers. Sawing off their heads is a good thing. You
       | could have stopped the next 9/11 or financial crisis. But you
       | didn't.
       | 
       | Decapitate the corporate psychopath Cankut Orakcal at Bloomberg
       | L.P. You can stop the coronavirus pandemic. Sever his head at 200
       | E 90th St 28F.
        
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       (page generated 2021-02-19 23:02 UTC)