Story time!
So I have been with a company for a while, two years before the pandemic. I am a Systems Engineer. We were basically a skeleton crew that handled everything and were understaffed. Our Manager quit and left us to only talk to the CIO, who never replied to anything we needed or asked for. Fast forward, we are now past the pandemic, still no Manager and they are asking us to come into the office again. While annoying, we all complied. A few of my co-workers asked them for a raise or they were going to go elsewhere for a pay bump since we were still a skeleton crew. The company reluctantly upped their wage.
Before I go further, I am the most experienced of the crew and have the most certificates and responsibilities. I tell them that I would rather NOT go the quitting route and get the raise because I earned it from the amount of projects I have completed and my performance. BIG mistake.. They started pulling things out of the woodwork to try and use against me that didn't exist. They brought out notes from the Manager that didn't even work there anymore and wouldn't tell me what it said. (Even though I had never been written up ever.) Now, somehow I am put in a category of “inconsistent”.
Now I am put in a position to where I have to prove myself, and they said they would re-evaluate in 6 months. So me, being an idiot.. I comply. I go into the office every day and knock out all of these projects. I am overworking myself and people are noticing, literally working myself to fatigue mentally. Month 4 comes around and I take off a week for scheduled time off to regather myself. (This was scheduled ahead of time and no one complained.) I come back and continue my duties as before.
Month 6 rolls around and it's time for the re-evaluation. I go into the office and they say the following: “We saw you were going above and beyond and then all of a sudden you didn't show up for a week and your performance dropped after you returned.” They denied my request. I quit that job two weeks from then and I am now making 40k more than I was somewhere else, doing less.
Lesson learned, never think that going above and beyond will benefit you. Because even when you get to the end of the road, that's your new expectation going forward. And any decrease in “Going above and beyond” will look bad. Also never think anyone has your back in a company, because they are only out for themselves.