I just spent a whole fucking workday working on a promotion recommendation for one of my direct reports. This was a lot of work and this person deserves a promotion 100%. It'll probably be 2 cycles before it goes through because… who the fuck knows? I send it up and nobody knows after that. Maybe my boss drops the ball – I'll never know. If you have a lazy or overworked boss, or your boss just doesn't like you even just a little bit and doesn't want to take the extra effort, all they have to say is “welp, didn't go through this time! Sorry!” What a ridiculous system.