[CamTin]

Yes, I was mirroring your own use of the word "truth." My point is that performance reviews are simply the result of management's opinions. You asked the question "Why do you assume the manager always know the truth?" and the answer is that truth is irrelevant (or perhaps even nonsense as a concept) in this context. Only opinions matter, specifically the opinions that make up your performance review, which are the opinions of management. There is no objective way to measure your performance or, if there is, management likely is not doing so unless you work in a field with very easily measurable output (billable hours or something like that).

As in many or most aspects of social activities like work, objective reality effectively does not exist. Only the consensus reality matters.

[temp8964]

That is not true. Performance evaluation is not totally subjective.

[CamTin]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. To me it's obvious that performance reviews aren't and cannot be objective. You may disagree, but this will inevitably lead to dissonance when you your boss's assessment of your performance doesn't line up with what you think your "objective" performance is. This will eventually happen if it hasn't already. If you get a bad review while you think you're knocking it out of the park, the attitude I've outlined here has two benefits. First, it helps you realize that this supposedly objective review of your worth to the company is in fact largely bullshit. Second, it helps you realize that you need to spend some time learning whatever it is that your boss thinks is valuable and optimizing for that instead of whatever you're optimizing for now.