Then, I walked into a one-on-one with my boss thinking I was going to get a raise or some kind of positive feedback, and ended up presented with a performance improvement plan. This was puzzling as I tracked and kept hard copies of all of my work stats and I knew I was the most productive member of our team, but the company was downsizing and for some reason was doing back-door layoffs via putting random people through the performance review process. (Guessing I was making more than my teammates at the time and it was a purely numerical decision.)
Knowing I was outperforming my teammates, I refused to sign it. I fought it with HR and HR seemed to feel pressured to side with me because I had kept such extensive documentation of my performance and they feared a lawsuit. After the 90 days was up and I kept my job, I don’t think it ever crossed the mind of my boss or boss’s boss to try that shit again, but I definitely didn’t make it a point to go above and beyond ever again while I worked there. I worked just hard enough to be ahead of my peers.
The downside is I fucking hated working there and was stuck for another 5 years before I found a job I actually like.
A example I found in the comments too
It worked out well for a while with me.
Then, I walked into a one-on-one with my boss thinking I was going to get a raise or some kind of positive feedback, and ended up presented with a performance improvement plan. This was puzzling as I tracked and kept hard copies of all of my work stats and I knew I was the most productive member of our team, but the company was downsizing and for some reason was doing back-door layoffs via putting random people through the performance review process. (Guessing I was making more than my teammates at the time and it was a purely numerical decision.)
Knowing I was outperforming my teammates, I refused to sign it. I fought it with HR and HR seemed to feel pressured to side with me because I had kept such extensive documentation of my performance and they feared a lawsuit. After the 90 days was up and I kept my job, I don’t think it ever crossed the mind of my boss or boss’s boss to try that shit again, but I definitely didn’t make it a point to go above and beyond ever again while I worked there. I worked just hard enough to be ahead of my peers.
The downside is I fucking hated working there and was stuck for another 5 years before I found a job I actually like.