The Setup

You've asked for honest feedback in every 1-on-1 for a year. You were told you were doing fine every single time. Then a Performance Improvement Plan appeared in your inbox — contradictory criteria, tight deadline, zero warning. Your manager said HR prevented him from telling you sooner. HR said that wasn't true.

That's not a performance problem. That's a setup.

Today's episode names the specific dynamic at play here — what happens when a 1-on-1 meeting gets quietly converted from a development conversation into a theater of false reassurance, and how to protect yourself before the trap closes. The episode covers what the early warning signs look like (they're subtle, and they don't feel hostile), the two-part documentation move that actually works, and three spoken lines you can take into your next 1-on-1 without sounding defensive or panicked.

If you've been feeling like the ground is shifting at work but you can't quite name why — this one is for you.