Fatigue.

Mentally, I'm exhausted. Over the past year, I've been trying to engage with managers about recognising what I bring to my team in work. And I bring a lot. Without going into too much detail, I have more responsibility than anyone else in the team and the work that I deliver is as good as anyone else's, even those who are at a higher grade than I. Even considering areas like mentoring and technical expertise, I compare more than favourably with team members. Getting my managers to admit to this and have this reflected in my end of year score (which then has a direct influence on things like pay rises, promotion opportunities and bonus payments) is proving almost impossible though. Goals are constantly moved. Manager’s scores are subjective rather than objective. I can put forward as many logical arguments as I want, but that ultimately means very little when people cannot justify their own scoring system, but won't admit to its failings. I can, though, objectively prove my claims above regarding responsibilities and quality of work.

However, within the last 24 hours, the situation has been exacerbated by a recent change in internal policy. Supposedly a lot of salaries were reviewed based on, yup, last year's scores and employees' responsibilities at a manager level rather than HR level as had been the case previously. I've not been reviewed, at least, not yet. It's possible that the meetings are slowly taking place and I could yet be told that I am graded higher or have had a salary adjustment, but my gut says otherwise. And without blowing my own trumpet, my gut is usually pretty damned accurate.

This year's scores are still four to six weeks away, but a realignment right now would have been a good litmus test to what I might expect. And if I've still not had a review meeting with a manager by end of day tomorrow, then that expectation will be set low and the likelihood of me having to go to HR with a complaint becomes much higher.

This is in addition to the holiday period. It's getting to me more this year. Whilst I've always disliked the Xmas season, I've tolerated it... but if I could crawl into bed tonight and come out on Jan 3rd, I'd take that option right now. It has felt as if things have been far too much hard work this year. Things that should be simple have taken way more work, time, perseverance and energy than they should. It's not just the work thing, but even getting KfW2 out for drinks, or the wasted time with Sports Girl before she started dating GM as other examples.