Hard work and long hours is unrewarded, it is expected. Often told "your standard workload done exceptionally is a meets, middle of the road performance". Our team was small and had enough work for quadruple the size (which management is FINALLY putting into affect by off shoring). So to accomplish the standard would require over 60+ hours a week for every individual. No end in sight. So I take on a huge project and work 80 hour weeks (3+ months); direct management barely responded with an email good job.
No work in team work, just pass the hard work and take credit for the "concept".
Managers and HR are a team (as they should be), noone looks out for the individual contributor (you are alone). No oversight/insight to a manager in the wrong role (my manager didn't know at a 10k ft level what swap or http vs. https (umm... we are a security first, devops team)), performing questionable (although not illegal) activities, especially with vendors.
Performance reviews are 1 way: down. No way to effectively make a change, even if a written statement is proven inaccurate with other written documentation. Email is the foundation of any written communication and only saved for 6 months. Performance reviews are 6 months (a joke, only thing that matters is your rating, just a virtual signature effort) and 12 months. Thereby everything is based on your written notes, any saved offline communications, OR what your management said happened. Even if you have proven inaccuracies, there is no way to affect a change.
