I'm happy to announce I have passed my performance review.

Overall rating: "Meets Expectations". I have been meeting expectations for 3 years. I have exceeded them for 2. The difference, I've been told, is "visibility".

I have learned that visibility means talking louder in meetings, sending emails at 11pm, and saying "great shout" when my manager repeats my idea back to me.

I am a very good performer. The performance is exhausting.

Four years. My therapist says I've made "significant progress" separating self-worth from performance scores.

My manager says I'm "not quite ready" for senior level.

One of us is right.

Excited to share I was promoted to Lead UI/UX Designer.

What they left out: same salary. 40% more responsibility. I now manage two people with zero management training. One of them was passed over for my role and is not thrilled about it.

But the title looks incredible on here!

Delighted to be back from maternity leave and starting an exciting new chapter.

My old projects have been "restructured". My desk is gone. Three people have asked if I'm "sure" I want to come back full time.

Yes. I'm sure. I also need to pay rent.

I'm officially a Mooqler.

Six interview rounds. A 20-hour unpaid take-home project. A hiring freeze mid-process. Two rejections before this offer. I cried in more Ubers than I can count.

I will tell absolutely no one how much it cost me to get here.

Thrilled to announce I'm entering my 18th month of unemployment.

847 applications sent. 3 replies. 1 interview that ghosted me after the final round. I have rewritten my CV 11 times. I have been told I am "overqualified", "underqualified", and "not quite the right culture fit" — sometimes for the same role.

Thriving!

Thrilled to announce I have been laid off for the third time in 18 months.

January 2023: "organisational restructure". August 2023: "strategic realignment". Last week: "evolving business priorities".

Three companies. Three all-hands Zoom calls. Three times I was told it was "nothing personal" by someone who did not know my name.

I have started rating restructures the way people rate Ubers. This last one gets 3 stars — at least they gave me two weeks notice.

Excited to share I've completed my 4th mandatory Mental Health Day this year.

I spent it answering emails. My manager sent three of them. One was marked urgent. It was not urgent.

Looking forward to my 5th.

Thrilled to announce I've been asked to "do more with less" for the 6th consecutive year.

Less is now nothing. We are doing things with nothing. I have written a 14-slide deck explaining how we will do things with nothing. The deck required 3 rounds of revisions. It is a very good deck about nothing.

Happy to share I gave honest feedback in our anonymous employee survey.

I have since been called into three separate meetings. My manager has "some questions". HR would like to "touch base". My skip-level wants to "open a dialogue".

The survey was anonymous.

Delighted to share I have a second interview for a role that pays less than my last job, has fewer benefits, and requires "startup energy".

I've learned that startup energy means unpaid overtime, an office with a ping pong table that nobody uses, and a Slack channel called #wins where the founders post their own tweets.

I am going to the interview.

Excited to share I've been "kept on file" by 47 companies.

I am no one's file. I have never heard from any of them again. I have searched my inbox. I have checked spam. I am in 47 files and I am in none of them.

I've been at this company 6 years. A new hire doing my job starts next Monday.

His salary is 30% higher than mine. I know this because he told me at lunch on his first day. He seemed embarrassed. I told him not to be. He did nothing wrong. I have since updated my CV.

We have been introduced. He seems nice.

Pleased to announce I have perfected the art of looking busy on a call while being completely checked out.

Four years of practice. I nod at 12-second intervals. I type occasionally — it is the same sentence, deleted and retyped. I have never been caught. I am very tired.

Our CEO just announced we're "doubling down on our people-first culture".

This is two weeks after the third round of layoffs this year. The announcement was made on a Friday at 4:45pm. There was a slide with a sunrise on it. The slide said "our people are our greatest asset". 34 of our greatest assets were let go that morning.

I've been told my role is being "sunset".

Not cut. Not eliminated. Sunset. As if I'm a feature. As if I'm a legacy integration they've finally decided to deprecate. As if my seven years here are a technical debt they've chosen to write off.

I've been sunset. I'm going for a walk.

Pleased to announce I have delivered the bad news to 6 people this quarter.

None of it was my decision. All of it was my face. I was the one in the room. I was the one who said "this was a really difficult decision". I was the one who got the silent walk back to the desk.

Leadership said I "handled it with grace". I have not slept properly in two weeks.

Excited to share I have sat in 3 meetings about headcount reduction this quarter.

And then walked back to my team and said everything is fine. And then answered Slack messages about career growth. And then written performance reviews for people whose roles may not exist in 60 days.

I am excellent at compartmentalisation. I am not sure this is a compliment.

Thrilled to announce our runway is 4 months.

I have not told anyone. I am on a podcast next week talking about our exciting growth trajectory. I have just approved new office plants. I approved them before I ran the numbers. The plants are very nice.

I started this company because I wanted to build something honest. I am unsure when that changed.

Happy to share I approved a 0% salary increase across the company this year.

I also approved a £40,000 rebrand. The new logo is very clean. I have not connected these two decisions publicly. Several people have connected them privately. I know this because someone left a printed copy of the rebrand invoice on my chair.

The new logo is still very clean.

Delighted to announce I have written "people are our greatest asset" in 14 internal documents this year.

I was also in the room for all 3 rounds of layoffs. I drafted the scripts. I reviewed the severance packages. I nodded when someone said "we're doing this with empathy".

I don't know what empathy means in that context. I wrote it anyway.

Excited to share I have streamlined our performance review process.

It now takes longer. The ratings mean less. Three people have asked me what "exceeds expectations in this context" actually means. I have a 4-page document that answers this question. Nobody has read it, including me.

The process is very streamlined.

Our employee engagement survey came back 3.2 out of 5.

We have decided to run a workshop to discuss the results. I will be facilitating the workshop. I am aware that I am part of the problem. The workshop has a slide with a sunflower on it.

I rejected a candidate today for "asking too much".

He asked for £15,000 less than my salary. I told him we would "keep looking". We have been looking for four months. We are still looking. He has probably found something better. I hope he has.

I announced mandatory return to office this Monday.

On Tuesday I flew to Lisbon for two weeks to "meet with partners". I worked from a co-working space. It had better coffee than our office. I have not mentioned this on the all-hands call.

We promoted our best performer in January. She left in July.

In her exit interview she told us exactly why. I typed it into a report. I sent the report to leadership. Nobody read it. She is now at a competitor earning 40% more. The competitor is winning.

I have given the same "high potential" speech to 6 people in 3 years.

Four of them have left. One of them is my manager now at a different company. One of them sends me LinkedIn connection requests I don't accept because I'm embarrassed. The speech was very good though.

I was unemployed for 2 years. Today I turned down a job offer.

Not because it wasn't good enough. Because I finally know what I'm worth — and it wasn't in that offer. Two years ago I would have said yes before they finished the sentence.

I don't know when the right thing comes. But I know I'm done saying yes to the wrong ones.