I wouldn't want to work somewhere at FB scale that doesn't grade you on the curve of other engineers in your department and level, once your departments are large enough that's exactly how it should work.
What's problematic is forcefully defining X percent as being low performing, the comparison to peers is a misused kernel of benefit.
BTW "meets most" likely doesn't sound too bad to non-Metamates. Internally it's a pretty bad mark on your record. It doesn't directly relate to being fired but a ton of people quit when they receive it. I view it as sort of a "pre-PIP" state.
(* Managers/directors will say it's only a suggestion but nobody really believes that. I'm sure management themselves are frowned upon for not having enough MM under them.)
The kind of newspeak I've heard from multiple friends and former coworkers that ended up at FB/Meta at some point. Well, the ones that didn't fall into the cult of Mark.
It might be because I'm getting older but this is the kind of stuff that makes me want to puke. The co-optation of language to exude an aura of friendliness is absolutely disgusting.
MM is a warning—it means you need to improve or you'll likely be put on a PIP.
I despise this, the dissonance between a positivity-sounding "meets most" with the actual meaning being "pretty bad" is what I expect from the North Korean regime, or Russia. It's a disgusting type of newspeak/corporatespeak which, admittedly irrationally, boils my blood.
The idea is they consider themselves to have a very high bar (which I think is largely accurate). They say you “meet most expectations” which means you hit the marks on all but 1 or 2 criteria. It’s not that you’re not good at your job, it’s that that’s not good enough for them.
Of course anyone receiving a MM is having a very shitty day despite that. They could use more direct language but I’m not sure it would have any practical difference.
It doesn't matter how much friendly-sounding bullshit you slather on if that's what's happening.
relevant to the overarching topic: https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-05-24
Hmmm this doesn’t sound like the Facebook I worked at
EDIT: sorry I see you said "worked at". So I guess you won't be able to verify.
In this thread someone mentions it exactly how I remember the doc describing it: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Companies-With-Stacked-Rankin...
The curve is defined by the organization. They can carefully examine it, refine it, backtrack how it's performed... or you can have someone clueless hear that so and so company fires Y percent, so let's tweak the curve until Y percent are at the "extremities"