Corporate Kafka

There's a philosophy that you make someone feel guilty, let guilt drive him to the point where you can punish him while being no bad at all. The person in question will think that he deserves it, out of utter guilt.

My employer seems to be involved in this practice recently. We were supposed to get our performance reviews, and raises based on that, early in July. But they held our raises as "ransom", I would say, because we had to deliver two milestones later, one in August and second in early October. They want us to give us raises based on the performance not included in review period. You performed poor, there you go with couple more bucks, thinking you deserved it. You did good, there you go with a couple more bucks plus a lot of guilt as bonus, thinking you deserved it.

Guilt, you might think, comes from what?
Well, my employer has some unusual policies. Like 10 hours pure work day. If you think you want to have lunch today, work 1 hour more. Less than average annual leaves. Same hours in Ramadan. No overtime compensation.
So, this is what guilt comes from. Nobody follows minutes and seconds of timing. Sometimes you come late, sometimes you leave early. But since it was mentioned to be there for 10 (+1) hours, you are guilty. Everybody leaves early in Ramadan, so if you leave early and the employer is kind enough to give you a "relief", all those hours are going to be accumulated and cut off from your annual leaves. If you didn't take that "relief" and left minutes before Iftar, you are guilty.

All these accumulated guilts blast right on your performance sheet. No matter what you did, no matter how dedicated you were, nothing matters more than those skipped hours in last six months. The hours that were supposed to be missed since you had to work 10 (+1) hours everyday while running your daily life errands. And then you realize that this policy was made with an evil grin on the face. I tried to be vocal once but was immediately reminded of my missed hours. Enough to silence anyone.

As our reviews come inevitably nearer and nearer everyday, rumors has it that be prepared to die with this guilt.