Me during my last performance review: So I did this, and that, which has this impact, and that impact
Some dude from the higher echelon: what you achieved is nice, but you need to contribute outside of your team too. No promotion for you!

Me during this performance review: ok, so here's what I did and its impact, and also here's my contribution to the company outside of my team
Some dude from the higher echelon: wow why are you doing all that? You need to delegate more. No promotion for you!

I love corporate life!

I haven't had issues with promotions really, but in my performance evaluations they always have me just under exceeds expectations (even the year they later promoted me to Sr. Software Engineer...).

It's ALWAYS you need to expand your influence more.... but when I explain that I do have influence in every area we interact with... it changes to "yes, all of the managers under our Sr. Director know that, but we need the influence more visible..."

Me just thinking "isn't selling me to your peers during calibration your job....."

@fruitfcker what if the team doesn’t have defined goals?

@fruitfcker working on it. The challenge is that my skills are very very specific, and these folks pay be almost double of what others are willing to pay me for now.

Freelancing is tough with hyperspecialised (is that a word?) skills.