Employee forgoes extra tasks after receiving mediocre performance review, goes on leave as new boss panics: 'I am not doing anything beyond my scope'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jan 30, 2026 9:00 AM EST

This new manager severely underestimated the added value that his top employee brought to the team. Once he figured it out, it was too late for him and for the company.

This employee had an arrangement with his now former boss that he would take on a few tasks and responsibilities outside of the core duties within his position in exchange for a strong annual performance review each December. Getting a score of "excellent" on this review would mean that the employee would receive an annual bonus.

Over the years, the employee came to rely on that bonus as part of his income. After all, he was knocking it out of the park with both his core duties and these extra tasks anyway. Why shouldn't he receive that bonus each year?

Unfortunately for the employee, circumstances at his company changed after his manager exited. The new guy was a tough cookie and proceeded to give the author a mediocre performance review, thereby denying him his annual bonus right in time for the holidays.

Now that we are almost a full month into the new year, the employee decided that since he didn't receive that bonus, he would no longer be completing those extra tasks and responsibilities. The problem was that no one else turned out to be capable enough to complete them without his involvement. Seems like the new boss made a major miscalculation.

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  • To make matters even worse for the new boss and for the company at large, the employee scheduled his pre-approved leave right around the time he decided to stop performing these tasks.

    We recommend that during his time off, he begin to start looking for other employment opportunities. Clearly, this new manager does not have his back and is unwilling to reward employees for fulfilling their core responsibilities. After all, the fact that the author had been meeting expectations should have been justification for this bonus. The fact that he was also exceeding those expectations is further proof of the fact that he was more than entitled to that compensation. 

    In our eyes, this boss deserves to experience the consequences of his own poor management.

  • A man in a suit holds a clipboard talking to another employee.
    via Vitaly Gariev

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • so here it goes: I work in an international corporation, our performance is rated yearly on a scale that goes: bad, average, good, high, outstanding.
    via WantToVent
  • The last two give you a yearly bonus and there is literally no difference in the amounts you get paid but an extra minor non monetary recognition for the last.
    via WantToVent
  • With my previous boss I had an agreement: I would do my job and cover for him as a deputy for vacations, simultaneous meetings, etc.
    via WantToVent
  • And he would do his best so I got the HIGH performance rating every year. Be aware that I have never missed a deadline, and covered all tasks.
    via WantToVent
  • I did earn the high performance every year for 4 years. My boss left on August and I was foisted on a new guy, I showed new guy what I was doing (my job and deputy tasks), he agreed that I should continue doing those.
    via WantToVent
  • On December 2025 for the yearly performance this guy rates me GOOD, so no bonus, I told him that I was successfully fulfilling my role and extra work, that is our internal metric of high performance.
    via WantToVent
  • His reply was that he had not seem me work, and he had higher expectations therefore he couldn't rate me
    via WantToVent
  • Very well, immediately after that I cancelled every meeting that had me as a my former boss replacement and sent several mails to HR and other stakeholders forfeiting the extra responsibilities, HR replied confirming that those tasks were not part of my role.
    via WantToVent
  • Nothing much happened given that the holidays were upon us. New boss started his week with his plate full of stuff that my former boss did and I covered for, and other team's request for guidance on what to do that my ex-boss and I occasionally answered.
    via WantToVent
  • One of the guys that I handed over tasks to, Jerry, has a background that is more managerial than operations; he is the one that ended up with most of the things that my old boss (and by extension I) was doing.
    via WantToVent
  • Due to January being a slow month for us, and taking days off, nothing much happened until this Wednesday
    via WantToVent
  • This Wednesday a regional up and coming big shot reported a problem with one of the things that our area as a whole handles, this thing is not in my narrow specialty, but it is one of the things that I would have tackled as my boss deputy.
    via WantToVent
  • It is a very weird situation as only one singular thing is failing, and everything else that involves the same machinery, people, services, IT, etc works as usual.
    via WantToVent
  • No modifications whatsoever done during the whole January, so it is puzzling. I see people calling for help in a war room to find out the issue, curious I enter, and I could see the relief on people faces as they are used to me taking charge of similar things in the past.
    via WantToVent
  • I asked a couple of questions due to pure morbid curiosity and knowing where this issue might be happening, I tell the people "Well, based on the things you have said, we can ignore X, Y, Z as causes, the problems are either on M component, or N component; unfortunately as this is not my area of expertise, I can not offer further aid, please reach me out again if my team is needed".
    via WantToVent
  • Well, you could see the disappointment in their faces, but totally understandable. They summon Jerry once I am gone, and they start troubleshooting...
    via WantToVent
  • Whole Wednesday passes no solution and people going until very late in the night, Thursday starts with the team early working on it and at some point the call my old boss at NEWCO and his team as we have some TSA (Transition Service Agreement) going on, eventually my old boss informs that they did a change in their IT services in December (which they had informed us) and for some reason we only saw the effect on Wednesday.
    via WantToVent
  • A man in a suit reviews a document with another employee.
    via Vitaly Gariev

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • This involves N component (highlighted in the previous paragraph) and of course even though Jerry was informed of this he couldn't do more as he lacked expertise, but the guys at NEWCO did something on their side and presto, all fixed.
    via WantToVent
  • Problem solved, everyone happy right? Nope, as the reporting guy raised a fuss, saying that everything is topsy- turvy since the split and they need things to work as usual.
    via WantToVent
  • Be aware that Jerry is not a bad guy, these things are simply not his area of expertise.
    via WantToVent
  • After the issue Jerry comes to me asking me if I can do these technical stuff again in his place, and I transparently say that since I am not getting paid for it, I am not doing anything beyond my scope, I have too much in my plate as it is.
    via WantToVent
  • The week has ended, and the guy that raised the alarm is asking for internal changes, and before anyone asks: he is somewhat important, but not THAT important that due to his demands they will give me a manager role, nor they will give me the tasks again, there is a clear delimitation of roles now, I got that in writing.
    via WantToVent
  • However, I do expect to see some requests starting next week regarding what old boss did...
    via WantToVent
  • It is unfortunate that I am going to go on a short leave :D. If new boss asks for me to take those things, I will reply that since the extra activities did not allow me time to fulfill his expectations, I had taken to heart his words and (with HR blessing) immediately started releasing my schedule from things that were clearly not in my scope.
    via WantToVent
  • A man in a suit holds a clipboard talking to another employee.
    via Vitaly Gariev

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Weekly-Tension-9346 Every time I've come into a management role, I've had people asking me what changes I plan to make. It's funny how often people get confused when I tell them, "I'm not making any changes right now." Then I follow up with, "My plan is learn what we're doing. Then to understand why we do things the way we're doing them. That is going to take time. Only after I know why we're doing things the way we're doing them will I start to make significant changes." That usually takes 6+ m
    via WantToVent
  • WantToVent Original Poster's Reply Oh new boss has been quite a while inside the company, but not my reporting lines at all. A bit of internal reorganisation shuffled us. And he was informed what I was doing, he just not saw fit to rate me higher. Well, the agreement that I had with old boss is no longer valid? Then the tasks I did extra are no longer my concern.
    via WantToVent
  • svejkOR I like it.
    via WantToVent
  • MikeyRidesABikey I think there was. The boss (at least implicitly) expressed that (s)he wished higher performance from OP. OP responded by dropping all the things that were outside of his job description to focus on improving performance on the things that are. Just my take. YMMV. Edit: Fix some gender assumptions to be neutral
    via WantToVent
  • OneRFeris How significant was the bonus that was denied to you? Like in terms of percentage of your salary?
    via WantToVent
  • WantToVent Original Poster's Reply Almost an after taxes month's salary of bonus. I will feel its absence.
    via WantToVent
  • newzillun This is perfect MC. His boss just didn't know what true compliance with his expectations would look like.
    via WantToVent
  • WantToVent Original Poster's Reply Just found out this video, but it seems a like he is talking to an Al or using a recorded voice. In my case, it was less talking and also less doing. I just said I was not going to do stuff, and got HR to confirm that those things were not mine in the first place. And just once I went to see what happened, and then excused myself. No particular lengthy explanation or justification.
    via WantToVent

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Tags

promotion work performance review overworked-employees Horrible Bosses workplace malicious compliance
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