- A poor performance review at work led to significant stress and weight loss for the author.
- The review was unexpected, with unclear feedback from a new manager causing confusion.
- The experience taught the author valuable lessons in self-advocacy and career management.
During one particularly difficult fall, in the span of three months, I lost 15 pounds, and people around me quickly noticed. Some friends in passing exclaimed that I looked incredible (I was startlingly underweight). Others expressed concern, asking, as discreetly as possible, if something was wrong.
I’m certain my friends and family would’ve found it oddly comforting to diagnose this sudden and dramatic shift — maybe it was a devastating break-up or financial stress. How could I tell them that I was unwell because I was just really stressed out? Like, really, really stressed out, all because of a bad performance review.
My first poor performance review
After years of working in tech, I received my first poor performance review. I was deeply anxious about how that would affect my career trajectory and struggled to understand how I “didn’t meet expectations” without knowing it.
I interpreted my hitting key milestones, conversations with my manager, and the feedback I received from my peers as positive signals — green lights to continue working as I always had, not red lights that obstructed my career growth.
I was exhausted and discouraged, and the poor performance review only increased my mental fatigue. I saw no escape route.
I didn’t know what I did wrong
When I asked why I received a rating for not meeting expectations, which colloquially translates to “not doing your job,” I was repeatedly given opaque answers. I continued to ask for supporting evidence for the poor performance review but never received a digestible answer. I struggled to understand my review rating and, as such, struggled to understand how to change it.
At many companies, a performance review is made distinctively by one single person (your manager), and even with the feedback of colleagues and peers, managers decide the final rating.
A bad performance review, which can obstruct impending promotions and team transfers at best and be job-threatening at worst, is often not standardized. Each manager can have a different process and subjective evaluation of employee work. In my case, this was problematic because I had such difficulty understanding how my work translated to the review I received.
A standardized performance process and clear communication would have significantly reduced my mental fatigue and increased my productivity in that specific role, which would’ve, in the long term, benefited my team and company.
Not understanding the reason for my bad review caused more stress than the bad review itself
To me, it felt like the sentiment from my manager was that this poor review was “just one quarter.”
I teared up at how cavalier this seemed. It felt like my job security was being torn apart at the seams. I panicked at the thought of losing my salary, my progress in my career ladder, and my reputation in my role at the time. I often thought about how it must have been only a passing thought to my manager.
The worst part is that I had no idea how I arrived at this point in my career or how to fix it.
My judgment felt clouded, and I had difficulty separating fact from fiction. I didn’t and couldn’t understand why and how my performance was not meeting the expectations outlined for my role.
I was so poorly equipped to navigate this ambiguous terrain and so stressed at the thought of losing my job that, over the following weeks, eating and sleeping felt like impossible hurdles.
Shortly after, two friends shared their own experiences about damaging work environments, managers, and performance ratings. The surprise of these stories, in conjunction with my own, made me reconsider everything I knew about performance reviews.
The entire experience taught me a powerful lesson
I always avoided asking about my performance at work. I lived with a preconceived idea that my work should and would always speak for itself. If I didn’t apply pressure to my performance trajectory — if I didn’t ask, engage, or insist on understanding my work evaluation before it was delivered — I avoided what I then considered painfully awkward questions. I now consider those conversations necessary interactions for self-advocacy.
This experience taught me to directly ask the following questions before reviews:
- Do you have any feedback for me?
- What are areas in which my work can improve?
- Is there anything I should be aware of before my next performance review is delivered?
- Where do I stand?
One bad performance review doesn’t need to signal the loss of a career. It can be a compelling signal that something isn’t functioning as it should — an opportunity to repurpose your current approach to work, a nudge to take agency of your career trajectory (like in my case), or even to recognize that maybe it’s time to move on from your current role or company.
The lessons I’ve learned in self-advocacy are more consequential than any exceeding expectations review could have ever given me. I’ve learned to speak up, disagree, and champion myself all because of one bad review.
I’m forever grateful for those lessons and where they’ve led me — to a job I love, a renewed self-confidence in myself and my work, and the excitement to share my story.
Sandra Milosevic works in engineering, product, and design enablement. She has been in the tech space for over eight years and is a former Uber and Snap employee passionate about people, learning, and development processes.
