Manager: Keep improving your work at [company name], keep working keep doing more keep meeting this list of demands and exceeding it. Oh the list gets bigger every day? Yes you’re expected to meet that and do so perfectly to meet the standards. Go beyond perfect actually because this one co-worker decided to dedicate their life to doing everything and more for the company at the sacrifice of their own sanity, and I’m setting the standard on their behavior. Oh yes I’m implementing a new system and I expect you all to be perfect with it, yes it just saves us money and is worse than the old system. No I won’t hire anyone new to meet the new workload that is double the old workload because people retired. Oh those older employees? They are leaving with huge bonuses, you just inherit their duties while they got paid twice as much as you to do half as much as you used to. No working from home like they did though, that would bring down morale! Make sure you get this workload done by Friday or everyone on the team will have to work mandatory overtime! No pressure! Oh btw here’s 30 more tickets because something went wrong and two people called off. You’re still expected to do everything perfectly though! I know you get paid less than your coworkers, but please do this without any complaints and more efficiently than they would. Thanks.
What’s that? What incentivises you to keep doing all of this and pushing yourself? Well since you only earned ‘okay’ on your performance review for hitting all of the targets that you were told to, you won’t be getting a pay raise this year. So I suppose it’s just that your team doesn’t fall behind! Make sure they don’t hate you for the work you couldn’t complete! That wouldn’t make this a very healthy work environment, would it? If you fall behind I’ll berate you btw :)
Now, I really value your input, and will ask you to give your input more often in meetings, but the second you do I will call your ideas stupid and belittle and berate you in front of the whole team! Please continue doing so though or I will never be able to upgrade your performance rating and you’ll never get a raise, not that I was planning on doing that anyway because there’s always room for you to improve!
Oh btw I’m getting a promotion! I will earn more money, still be in charge of everything, and your team will just have to inherit many of my old responsibilities.
Oh you did all the work I wanted you to and met every expectation and then some despite it all? Man the team did such a good job, it’d be selfish to want any recognition or reward. You aren’t the only one working hard you know?
Keep working hard! It’s a team effort! Good job everyone!
