In my experience, what’s happening is not genuine coaching or development. It feels like a system designed to manage people out rather than set them up to succeed. When expectations are unclear, goals change without notice, and performance plans are inconsistently documented or applied, that is not transparency — it’s avoidance.
These practices are widely recognized and discussed in employment and legal spaces as:
Bad-faith performance management
Retaliatory or discriminatory coaching
Corporate managed attrition
They exist, and pretending otherwise doesn’t make them ethical.
What’s most troubling is that leadership is aware. Employee surveys, engagement feedback, and exit data consistently highlight the same concerns. When the data “says it all,” the real question becomes: at what point does leadership get held to the same standard they enforce on everyone else?
People should not be forced to choose between their livelihood and their dignity.
So here’s my message to anyone experiencing this:
Stop internalizing it
Start documenting everything
Save emails, feedback, shifting goals, and timelines
Ask for expectations in writing
Ask for documentation — especially when none is provided
Accountability doesn’t come from silence. It comes from patterns, paper trails, and people refusing to carry systems that don’t operate in good faith.
This isn’t about attacking individuals. It’s about naming a process that causes harm and demanding better from those who design, approve, and benefit from it.
Leadership accountability is not optional — it’s overdue. We don’t just work for them they work for us too.
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You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. I was laid off in the first batch Oct 2023, and not surprised at all. THEY had us time new processes for a couple weeks, we did and things were taking three times longer, then they did absolutely nothing with that information. No overtime allowed, but you still had to hit your usual metrics. Then I got a shittier raise because of average performance. I didn't let the issue go, but they sure did lol.
These are not reasonable people.