Mean

some stories about my performance reviews at msft, and thoughts on how to be better

My Five for Friday yesterday included a link to this article discussing Microsoft’s review system (or one of them), that I thought would be fun to reflect on a bit.

When I joined Microsoft in 1995 (please, no age jokes), we did a full on 1-n stack rankings twice a year (I didn’t join in on the fun for a few years, but it wasn’t a secret). At the time, Microsoft had a scoring system that went (theoretically) from 2.5 to 5.0. The bulk of the org would receive a 3.0 or 3.5 rating (basically, meeting expectations, or doing slightly more). A certain percentage of the org could get a 4.0 or higher rating (higher scores were rarer, but would usually occur, although I never saw a 5.0 given). Then, 10% would have to get a 2.5 - which meant you were most likely getting fired. It’s worth noting that a 2.5 didn’t guarantee that you were done, there was a little bit of wiggle room and politics you could play, but I don’t remember anyone every getting a 2.5 in two consecutive reviews - it was an “up…