Okay, brief background: Live in Houston (which has low cost of living), make a shade over six figures and annual bonus is around $15K to $20K, had two miserable jobs prior to this one, good work/life balance. position is where I’ve been two years (credit analyst at integrated oil company), but have 10+ years experience.
Appraisal process: The way performance review basically works at this company is A, B+, B, B-, C.
- “A” performer is basically model employee who does everything perfectly (the standard by which employees admire and consider a standard-bearer, but not necessarily emulate) of which only 5% to 10% are.
- B" performer is somone who is performing to expectations, a good rating, and probably around 60-65% of employees with. The plus and minus meaning slightly exceeding and slightly below expectations and make up about 20%.
- “C” performers are well below expectations and are about 5% or less and monitored more closely to bring up performance or may lose their jobs.
Anyway, during the first year my boss said I did good work and moved up the learning curve quickly, thus ensuring a B rating. Of course, he also said the onboarding process (training, learning company way, etc.) prevented a higher rating, but was happy with my work. I was happy with the B rating since it was realistic considering my time with the company.
In the second year, I had reasonably-sized portfolio and obtained some significant credit line increases. During the mid-year review, he said in order to get a higher rating I would have to take on additional projects. I took on multiple projects that I worked on in the second half of the year since I accelerated the credit reviews (still at a high quality) during the first half. He also was nice enough to send me to a conference during the second half of the year. At YE, he said I did good work and DESERVED a “B+” rating, but that there was only so many to give out and it would be a challenge during the calibration process (which he did not mentione during mid-year). After the calibration process, he also mentioned the portfolio prevented the higher rating – this was first mentioned at the CLOSING evaluation. All said and done, I received a “B” rating.
So now it’s time for the opening discussion of the current year responsibilities and I basically have the largest portfolio of about 30+ counterparties and $1.5B in credit exposure along with projects. I basically agreed to take on this portfolio because my predecessor, who actually had received a A (because my boss didn’t know any better), was fired for corporate credit card abuse. One project also includes dealing with a high-maintenance individual which has NO upside for completion and the individual acting like a WHINY BITCH as serious downside). What ticks me off is if I do all of this work and my peers who may have less than half the number of counterparties and significantly smaller dollar sized lines do their work and we both get B ratings.
I understand a manager has to deal with the needs of a variety of individuals (he has about 10 direct reports) as well as having to motivate employees, but there’s two things that tick me off:
- His moving the goalposts: He “dangles carrots in front of you just to pull it away” after the fact. This should seriously affect his credibility, but it won’t since he’s moving to another position in June so he’ll pull this type of bait-and-switch stuff with his new group (and probably did with his old group since he moves every 2 to 3 years).
- Why the heck should I do all this additional work just to get a “B” rating where if I did only half the work I would still get a “B” rating? As always in corporate America, unequal effort gets equal rewards.
If you want to call me a whiny little bitch, go ahead. I’m keeping track of my responsibilities and what I am doing against the work of others, but I’m almost prepared to have a blow-up at YE if I get another 2 rating considering the work on my desk.