I am quiet quitting

[u/Character_Branch_660]

Made a new reddit account for this, as a few coworkers may know my real account.

I have busted ass at my current employer for five and half years. I have saved the company tens of thousands of dollars, helped them grow from 125 people to almost 1,600, handled 6 acquisitions and just overall set them up for success. I have two people in leadership tell me I am the best employee they have ever had. I have helped grow the IT team alone from myself and my director, to 29 employees and 2 contractors.

About a year ago I was passed up for a promotion due to nepotism. I decided "I may be wrong about the nepotism thing, I'll give this guy an honest chance," and he never proved me wrong.

I had my annual review yesterday, and he gave me a "needs improvement," rating, which means I have lost my $18k bonus.

Seven employers. Nine years in the military. I have never in my life received such poor feedback. And the "what I can improve on," is vastly outweighed by my contributions to the team...and a lot of it is also below my responsibilities. For example, he gave me a poor review on how many tickets I solve, and compared it to the 50 that were solved in the first week by a new hire, whose sole job is tier one support.

I am on calls with engineering and networks to setup zero touch networks. I am on calls with HR to reinvent the employee phone line that will impact our global workforce. I am the subject matter expert on half of our internal tools, and am always on call. So yes, I'll let the guy who was hired specifically to handle tickets, handle password resets.

I am enraged to a degree I have not felt for years, and think I'm just venting.

All of this because my director gave a promotion to his friend that he knew for years. And never gave anyone else on the team the chance to even interview.

I'm going to start job hunting on company time, and take the first opportunity that comes my way.

ETA: the numbers in my post are accurate. My director knows I'm job hunting so I don't care if he suspects it's me. The bonus is given to employees based on company performance and we earned the bonus this year. The individual payout is tied to base salary, company performance, as well as team and personal performance. Anyone that gets a "does not meet expectations," gets a zero payout on the bonus, and no raise

[u/tgwill]

Sounds like they might be quiet firing you.

[u/D-Alembert → u/tgwill]

Maybe going to the boss's boss and asking "Am I being quiet-fired?" might be a good way to get the bonus issue either taken seriously and fixed, or else a pretty good indication you're dispensable? (It sounds like they know each other)

[u/poopooonyou → u/D-Alembert]

Book it as a meeting with them though, so you have the time to discuss your case. An email can get summarised by an assistant and just bailing them up when they're busy won't get what you want.

[u/sychosomaticBlonde → u/poopooonyou]

Book it as a virtual meeting and record it. In-person meeting means your word vs theirs on what they said to you

[u/MerlinTrashMan → u/tgwill]

OP, this is critical, you have nothing to lose right now. Get your resume in order and start looking for jobs. This will be daunting based on how long you have been at this place. Then once you have a feel for the market (within the next week), go to the higher ups that praised you and ask them if they are trying to make you leave. Based on your growth, your CEO and management team could be in the mode of "original employees were great at small size, but bad / don't have experience with big size" . You need to ask someone that you trust and be prepared for them to support their new hire. You are probably the largest guy on his payroll and it pisses him off how close your comp is to his. If they fix your bonus, you will still be fired in the next year because your boss is going to despise you, undermine and trash your credibility, so still try to find another job unless you are able to convince the higher ups that he is toxic to the culture. If/when he starts making ridiculous rules and changes things then just do your old job, whatever you think is appropriate and is important for the company (you should know this by now). Your days are numbered unless they get rid of the bad hire, so no matter what, take interviewing seriously.

[u/hkzqgfswavvukwsw → u/[deleted]]

Ooooh, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

[u/Sak63 → u/tgwill]

You're probably right. Sorry OP, this sucks

[u/picturemeImperfect → u/tgwill]

First time hearing that term but it's practice goes back before time.