Having worked with a company that does shady stuff like this I eventually changed how I worked to match it.
I had a boss who thought it would be useful to track line of code changes per developer, number of features implemented and bugs fixed weighted by original estimates and other non-useful metrics to grade employees during their reviews. I was asked to implement the tools to scrape that info.
So what did I do? I used the same metrics and automated my todo list to make sure that I was always in the top 1% of the results. Since I was a lone wolf on a massive multi-year project it wasn't hard to find stuff to do. But when I got to the end of the month and it was trending to show I wouldn't drop a spot my scripts informed me that I was done working. I would also prioritize the level of effort to time left in the month. So if there was only two days left I'd pick up more small tasks to pad my output rather than taking on a bigger task I wouldn't complete in that month.
I started doing this after having been there 10 years. 10 years of me doing other jobs that were not mine "for the good of the company." 10 years of me traveling when travel wasn't part of the job. During this time having great number not much happened with regards to compensation. I went from being a team player to doing just as much as I needed to.
When I finally left and had my exit interview one of my managers noticed my marks were always top 1%...even in months when the company's total output was shitty. Since I was on my own projects there was no reason why I would have had a dip when other divisions dropped. So I asked, "if I had output 30% more than any other group...would you have given me a 30% raise? a 3% raise?" He said, "no we probably wouldn't have done anything beyond the standard cost of living increase."
I had a boss who thought it would be useful to track line of code changes per developer, number of features implemented and bugs fixed weighted by original estimates and other non-useful metrics to grade employees during their reviews. I was asked to implement the tools to scrape that info.
So what did I do? I used the same metrics and automated my todo list to make sure that I was always in the top 1% of the results. Since I was a lone wolf on a massive multi-year project it wasn't hard to find stuff to do. But when I got to the end of the month and it was trending to show I wouldn't drop a spot my scripts informed me that I was done working. I would also prioritize the level of effort to time left in the month. So if there was only two days left I'd pick up more small tasks to pad my output rather than taking on a bigger task I wouldn't complete in that month.
I started doing this after having been there 10 years. 10 years of me doing other jobs that were not mine "for the good of the company." 10 years of me traveling when travel wasn't part of the job. During this time having great number not much happened with regards to compensation. I went from being a team player to doing just as much as I needed to.
When I finally left and had my exit interview one of my managers noticed my marks were always top 1%...even in months when the company's total output was shitty. Since I was on my own projects there was no reason why I would have had a dip when other divisions dropped. So I asked, "if I had output 30% more than any other group...would you have given me a 30% raise? a 3% raise?" He said, "no we probably wouldn't have done anything beyond the standard cost of living increase."