So, I go into my review thinking I have to work on a couple of things, but nothing huge. One project has been hanging over my head, but I have about ten others that are on track, a couple of delays, but par for the course.

They ambushed me! It was like a bear hunt and I was the bear. What really pisses me off is that they had the nerve to say I was not busy. WTF? (now, you have no idea, so you'll have to trust me on this when I say the *whole* dept. is busy, myself included).

The only thing I can think is that they are trying to force me out of the job. I acknowledged some faults, but that review was ridiculous. And, what convinced me they are fsking with me is to tell me that I am not busy.

Argh. Had to vent. Wish I could drink, but I can't. This might be an opportune time to consider starting my own company, which I have always wanted to do.

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Hurts like a bastid...

I've seen this happen before. Usually it's a precursor to being let go. You're doing fine, then all of a sudden, they concoct something (even if that something was no problem in the past and was an accepted for everyone). Any reasonable employer would believe your performance has been exemplary. What's happening to you bites.

I'm still waiting for my review from last year...

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MacResource User Map: [www.zeemaps.com]#

I had to write my own. I guess my supervisor was lazy. Good thing was that I could check 'excellent' in all areas Now waiting for approval.

mine is coming up in the next few weeks, but I should be doing just fine, at least that's what my boss and most other colleagues say. I love my job, except the salary is average, and so are the raises...

What KILLS me about this is that I have never (!) had a review in 7 years on this job. This is the first ****** review. And, they only use a couple of projects *recently* that did not turn out perfectly. They happen to forget the couple of dozen I have completed in my past.

What is the company policy on employee reviews?

They really can't fire you if they have a policy that you're to be reviewed regularly and your managers never followed that policy. At the very least, it makes firing someone very difficult.

Without regular reviews and the corresponding feedback, how can you have known that what you were doing was bad/wrong/inappropriate/worth firing you over?

Any HR specialist would know this stuff, as would any employment attorney.

If they fire you or put you on some kind of corrective action, write them a letter--NOT AN EMAIL, VOICEMAIL, OR PERSONAL CONVERSATION--and ask for your last 5 reviews.

Get that request in writing.

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In the words of DharmaDog: "it may or may not be utter horse@#$%&, but it shouldn't be dismissed simply because it doesn't agree with your opinion."

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Trying is the first step to failure. -- Homer Simpson

yeah, elmo, i do have to follow up to find out more about the policy. no one really knows, since they just started dong reviews recently. it sort of makes the whole review thing moot if one does not have any regularity to this....

bigstuff, the same thing happened to me in my last job...I had been quite busy as well, matter of fact busy setting sales response records for the small publishing company where I had been working for only about three months when my review came up. It was a hen house as they say...I was one of two guys on an entire floor of probably 40 or 50 employees. Word on the street was my sup had a very hard time managing men for some odd reason. She was a weird bird as I recall. Young, too, which probably didn't help.

I got "terminated" a month later for no real reason. I could have fought it but I didn't give a rat's ass as the job was boring me out of my skull anyway. That was nearly 14 years ago. I have been self-employed all this time (freelance copywriter) and extremely happy and successful at it almost from the get-go.

Ditto elmo. If you like your job, stand up for it. If not, eh, go do your own thing if that is viable and you have the support you need from family, etc. But make sure you get whatever severance or a package, etc. as it sounds like you have been doing fine work for these clowns for quite a while now. Good luck to you, sorry to hear they are doing you wrong.

If you live in an "at will" state, then it doesn't matter if you had one bad review, or 1000 good reviews. Company policy on the review process will typically use wording such as "review period" in lieu of a real concrete time frame as well.

There's three reasons for a bad review, 1) no money for raises, 2) the initial step in filling the need to let someone go, 30 the emplyee is doing unsatisfactory work.

Maybe money is tight and this is the way to let some people get a bigger bouns vs. a smaller bonus?

3P

threeprong-

There's a fourth reason for a bad review: bad management. And a fifth: bad chemistry.