>One manager I had was pretty candid about it, he said he couldn't find another job and was looking to retire so he was going to give me a bad performance review despite actually being the top performer so he wouldn't be affected. He was otherwise very apologetic that his hand was forced.
I must be dense because I don't understand this. Your manager couldn't find another job, was instead looking to retire, and gave you a bad performance review?
Yep, the tl;dr is that at the time my manager's manager didn't appreciate me being transparent on mistakes our department made with other depts. So in an effort to make me quit, aside from other things, he wrote a review for my direct manager and required him to say it was his review. If he didn't he would be fired.
Pretty normal stuff at a certain level with insecure managers. Not exactly the same, but Steve Jobs wrote about how they relocated him into an empty building at Apple to make him quit. I was relocated too in fact.
The red flags I look for now:
- clearly not as smart as their peers in their own or other depts, they're likely struggling and will act irrationally
- very ambitious, but risk averse
- tells people what their title is whether they asked or not
- been at the company their whole career and just went along with the flow
There's likely some others, but I'm careful around those folks, they're just trouble.
I must be dense because I don't understand this. Your manager couldn't find another job, was instead looking to retire, and gave you a bad performance review?