A promotion can change a person fast, and not always for the better.

One tech employee earned an “Exceeds expectations” rating from his previous manager and spent nine months leading his team.

Then a former peer was promoted to be his boss, and things got ugly in a hurry. The new manager picked apart his work with more than thirty comments on a single document and started hiring for two principal-level roles that would split his team in two.

Soon after, the employee was placed on a performance plan built around vague skills like “judgment” and “opinionation.”

Sometimes a performance plan is just a layoff that’s beating around the bush.

Keep reading — this one will make your head spin.

“High performer” to PIP in 3 months

I work in tech. I was put on a PIP at the beginning of this month and have since put in a request for mutual separation because I was not about to waste my energy trying to meet an impossible plan.

This employee lays out the facts.

A few facts make me feel especially frustrated and gaslit in this situation:

I received an “Exceeds expectations” rating from my previous manager (A) in April for the previous year’s assessment.

But then came a personnel change.

I got a new manager (Blake) soon after, who used to be my peer but was promoted to management.

Blake still reports to Adam, and Adam got a title bump as well. Adam apparently fully supports Blake in putting me on this PIP.

Blake wasn’t always like this.

Blake was a very strong, principal-level IC before becoming a manager and said to me early on that they didn’t even want to be a manager and were just trialing this experience.

Turns out, he didn’t make for that good of a boss.

Blake immediately gave somewhat excessive, critical feedback and was generally micromanage-y.

This sentiment was shared by other folks who worked with them that I spoke to.

But regardless, Blake went on with his plans.

Blake started hiring for two new, principal-level roles for the team I had been leading for the past 9 months, with the intention to split the team into two smaller teams.

Blake’s performance plan focused on “judgment” and “opinionation” as skills, which are obviously not measurable or concrete.

The employee tried to play along, but Blake made it hard.

I went along with the plan for two weeks, and the whole time, Blake ripped apart my docs (30+ comments) and basically showed no intention of actually supporting me in a positive manner.

Now the employee is suspecting foul play.

The way I’m interpreting this is that the needs of the role have fundamentally changed, and rather than laying me off, they’re calling this a performance plan to not take responsibility.

It feels totally unfair.

This company sounds totally toxic.

What did Reddit have to say?

Corporate life can be rather unpredictable.

This user has some valuable advice to share.

HR isn’t the most trustworthy department.

This commenter shares their experience.

Ultimately, this employee read the situation, and walking away was the smartest move on the table.

This timeline just doesn’t make sense. How could someone go from a star performer in the spring to a problem employee in the summer?

Grading someone on vague terms is just a fancy way of a boss setting an employee up to fail without having to get their hands dirty.

At the end of the day, a rigged game isn’t worth winning.