explanade
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- May 10, 2008
- Messages
- 7,459
Been with a big company for over 18 years now.
We're right in the process of going through our annual reviews.
Today, I had a regular one-on-one meeting with my manager and after talking for an hour about ongoing business issues, he said he wanted to talk a little about my upcoming review.
He wanted to know about my motivations, where I wanted to go. He said my current performance is very good but earlier in the year, my performance wasn't up to snuff.
He wanted to know if I could sustain my current level. He then pointed out that I was in a unique and "fortunate" situation because I had cashed in stock options 5 years ago. He wanted to know if I was committed to doing the extra steps it took, whether working long hours or taking initiative on certain projects, given that I had no financial reason to work.
I was completely shocked by this discussion. My review had been great last year, including the "Results" category, which is as close to "performance" as the categories they use. Part of the review process involves feedback from other departments with which we work. Last year, they said I received raves from outside departments.
But this year, they're saying these same departments were complaining about my work. He didn't go into too many specifics, other than I didn't upgrade the software on my machine, which led to a problem software build.
However, he said as long as I sustain the results I'm currently getting, there would be no problems. But he kept returning to whether I had been thinking about retiring (obviously I had, since I joined ER just over 5 years ago). I said I hadn't, which is obviously not true, nor had I done any kind of planning, which is true because outside of playing around a couple of times with retirement calculators and perhaps taking part in discussions here, I hadn't done a lot of the nuts and bolts of planning a budget and thinking through withdrawal strategies.
In fact, since I've not invested all the proceeds from my windfall 5 years ago nor have I even rebalanced (AA is just approaching 60% equities these days).
The thing is, my assets have appreciated substantially in the last 4-5 years, as is the case for most people who've been in the market. So they really don't know how much I have. The original sum, at 4% WR, wouldn't even have amounted to half my current income. So as far as they know, I have a low 7-figure lump sum.
We went back and forth and I tried to assure them that I wouldn't be working the hours I've been putting in (at least 2-3 12 hours days a week plus weekend hours) as well as work with teams to optimally use the resources of our group, if I wasn't invested in this work.
He then said my current level of acceptable performance has been in the last 4-5 months and even then there were some "glitches" here and there. For example, being 30 minutes late to an hour staff meeting once.
One thing that I remembered, after the meeting, is that I was promoted in January, which would be before the current 4-5 month period of acceptable performance. I was given a modest salary bump and a increase in grade. But that meant I no longer was compensated for all the hours I was working, which sometimes went as high as 70-80 hours per week. In return, I would be eligible for additional bonuses. There haven't been any.
My overall impression was that I was being nudged to leave. Or being warned that I could be let go if some threshold of performance was not met. I asked for specifics about metrics and also more specific info. about the negative feedback from outside depts. but he said he didn't want to rehash the past, that the important thing is to sustain the current level of performance.
But if my "motivation" is there, I would be strongly encouraged to do retirement planning as well as work on a plan to train replacements.
He didn't come across that bluntly. I think he was trying to plant the seed in my head or informally warn me. Maybe a preview of the upcoming review.
I will also say that he's been manager of the dept. for a year. In fact, he had just taken over when he and my former manager jointly delivered a very positive review, with the highest rating in the "Results" category.
But in one of the first one-on-one meetings we had, he asked me why I continue to work the long hours required of the job, given my windfall, which I didn't tell him about. Presumably he looked up my HR files.
Between that initial mention and today, he hadn't conveyed any serious concerns about my work.
We're right in the process of going through our annual reviews.
Today, I had a regular one-on-one meeting with my manager and after talking for an hour about ongoing business issues, he said he wanted to talk a little about my upcoming review.
He wanted to know about my motivations, where I wanted to go. He said my current performance is very good but earlier in the year, my performance wasn't up to snuff.
He wanted to know if I could sustain my current level. He then pointed out that I was in a unique and "fortunate" situation because I had cashed in stock options 5 years ago. He wanted to know if I was committed to doing the extra steps it took, whether working long hours or taking initiative on certain projects, given that I had no financial reason to work.
I was completely shocked by this discussion. My review had been great last year, including the "Results" category, which is as close to "performance" as the categories they use. Part of the review process involves feedback from other departments with which we work. Last year, they said I received raves from outside departments.
But this year, they're saying these same departments were complaining about my work. He didn't go into too many specifics, other than I didn't upgrade the software on my machine, which led to a problem software build.
However, he said as long as I sustain the results I'm currently getting, there would be no problems. But he kept returning to whether I had been thinking about retiring (obviously I had, since I joined ER just over 5 years ago). I said I hadn't, which is obviously not true, nor had I done any kind of planning, which is true because outside of playing around a couple of times with retirement calculators and perhaps taking part in discussions here, I hadn't done a lot of the nuts and bolts of planning a budget and thinking through withdrawal strategies.
In fact, since I've not invested all the proceeds from my windfall 5 years ago nor have I even rebalanced (AA is just approaching 60% equities these days).
The thing is, my assets have appreciated substantially in the last 4-5 years, as is the case for most people who've been in the market. So they really don't know how much I have. The original sum, at 4% WR, wouldn't even have amounted to half my current income. So as far as they know, I have a low 7-figure lump sum.
We went back and forth and I tried to assure them that I wouldn't be working the hours I've been putting in (at least 2-3 12 hours days a week plus weekend hours) as well as work with teams to optimally use the resources of our group, if I wasn't invested in this work.
He then said my current level of acceptable performance has been in the last 4-5 months and even then there were some "glitches" here and there. For example, being 30 minutes late to an hour staff meeting once.
One thing that I remembered, after the meeting, is that I was promoted in January, which would be before the current 4-5 month period of acceptable performance. I was given a modest salary bump and a increase in grade. But that meant I no longer was compensated for all the hours I was working, which sometimes went as high as 70-80 hours per week. In return, I would be eligible for additional bonuses. There haven't been any.
My overall impression was that I was being nudged to leave. Or being warned that I could be let go if some threshold of performance was not met. I asked for specifics about metrics and also more specific info. about the negative feedback from outside depts. but he said he didn't want to rehash the past, that the important thing is to sustain the current level of performance.
But if my "motivation" is there, I would be strongly encouraged to do retirement planning as well as work on a plan to train replacements.
He didn't come across that bluntly. I think he was trying to plant the seed in my head or informally warn me. Maybe a preview of the upcoming review.
I will also say that he's been manager of the dept. for a year. In fact, he had just taken over when he and my former manager jointly delivered a very positive review, with the highest rating in the "Results" category.
But in one of the first one-on-one meetings we had, he asked me why I continue to work the long hours required of the job, given my windfall, which I didn't tell him about. Presumably he looked up my HR files.
Between that initial mention and today, he hadn't conveyed any serious concerns about my work.