I seen mine coming a mile away. My supervisors had always hated me. Unfortunately for them some people above them loved me me. They were not fully aware of this. Also my field is very understaffed. Especially now. Once they started the written process I bolted. I was doing a weekend shift and finished out the weekend. I gave them a little hope that I might reconsider so I wouldn't be harassed in my final days. Once I had no more shifts to cover I was out. I hinted to them I had the support of some higher up and they back tracked so badly. It was too late. I had already put up with so much abuse. I had known it was likely for awhile and saved a decent amount of money. I was also pretty sure I had another job lined up. I was off work for 6 weeks. I was on pins and needles the whole time about if the new job would pan out. It did and a couple of my co workers even came with me. I am not suggesting you leave if you get wrote up. Or even if a boss doesn't like you. If you know your already on shaky ground and they start documenting discipline or performance issues run!!! It's better to leave without notice than what this is going to do to your soul , self esteem and reputation.

Wow, thank you everyone for sharing your experiences. It's been eye opening and you've each given me a lot to consider for my research.

I believe I was managed out. I successfully delivered a project, then was moved to another team in the division where literally every subject matter expert on the product was on their way out the door, either to other parts of the company or other companies entirely. The remaining members of the team fought everything I tried to do. My manager put me on a PIP and I was making progress and then one day I hadn't made enough progress, or made progress fast enough, and I was out the door. I describe it in interviews as having left due to a reorganization. Interestingly, 2 years later, I had a recruiter present me for another role and I am eligible for rehire, so I have no idea what was actually put into my employee file.

What it looked like for me: I was passed over for a promotion (told there were no opportunities, but amazingly my peer was promoted). Then I was told they wanted me to "be happy" but whenever I asked for resources (what would make me "happy") or anything, that wasn't possible - my high-profile project was quietly moved to a different peer. I fought it and with HR's direction got my project back (job satisfaction) and now am being told how valuable I am to the team. Despite the smiles on their faces, the management still favors others and diminishes my concerns. They do not have my back. I am resigning soon with a letter that states I have no option but to leave.

I was managed out of a role I had otherwise really enjoyed because of internal politics. My original manager, who brought me in, left under some cloud and his successor inherited me. She wanted to bring in a protegee of her own. So she instructed me to teach every single aspect of my job to the protegee. In my presence, she offered benefits to two new employees while making clear that I was ineligible to receive them. And her boss bought gifts for everyone else in the office. She said she had one for me too but kept "forgetting" to bring it to the office with her. Then they laid me off, and on my last day, my boss' boss finally "remembered" to bring me that gift. It ended up in the garbage before I walked inside my apartment after I got home that day.

Like others have said it looks different in different organizations. Working in HR I've heard of it as "Performance Out" meaning a well-documented process of recording poor performance, notifying the employee that they are under-performing and going through a series of "citations" or "warnings" until termination. At the beginning (if they are doing it right) this will look like conversations with your leader making sure you are clear on your expectations, follow up conversations expressing that you are not meeting your expectations and a defined improvement targets and emailed or written summaries of these conversations. From there if the targets are not met the write-ups start. Organizations that are not doing this properly might manipulate this process more and may not be completely fair to the employee. In most cases, though, once they have decided to "Performance" you out there is little you can do to change it. If the decision was made for the right reason, this process is a way to make sure they are covering themselves while getting rid of any employee that is a bad role fit and/or culture fit and they sincerely don't have a place for them. Others may be more personal and are trying to hide it and just get rid of someone rather than actually be leaders and develop them properly. The only thing you really can do is document your side. If they email you a summary of a discussion make sure you reply with anything you are doing/achieving to pick up the slack and/or anything relevant from the conversation that they left out. If you're given a write-up, add any comments on it or write a letter to HR . This happened to me with a leader that had something personal against me and I knew it was too late for me and couldn't definitively prove anything but wanted HR to have documentation that this leader was behaving unprofessionally. I responded to every follow up email with things left out of the summary and wrote a letter to HR outlining unprofessional behavior like the leader gossiping about me and placing blame on me in front of others for things that were not my responsibility. I wanted out anyway but honestly I think it bought me a little time and I know it made the right people aware of a deeper issue (what they do with that is on them).

I think there is such a steep cost to staying in a toxic environment. Many times a person just talks themselves into staying out of fear if the unknown ...not realizing that it is ravaging their soul...not to mention their health, confidence and joy.

100% was happening to me in my last position. I was isolated to the point I was told by my boss that I was not allowed to ask questions or get what I needed to do my job from other departments unless I came to him. And he was always too busy, unless it was to yell, tell me I was stupid (I had been doing the job fine for over 15 years at this point), kept harping on things when they did not go exactly as he wanted, etc. I had never seen a "leader" work like that and use intimidation and bullying to get work done. But he did have obvious favorites and it was even worse when I had to work with the favorites. It was the most awkward, unprofessional experience. I managed to make it through for nine years until I was able to find another position. It took that long because most of my confidence was taken away from me and I was scared to put myself out there again.

I was being managed out of a previous role because my manager and I did not get along. It was a personality mismatch and we couldn't find a way to work together. Due to these struggles, I figured it was happening but instead of letting him dictate my career for me and setting me up for failure in a different position, I elected to leave the company. I know that is a luxury not everyone can afford, but for me it was the right choice. Once I was "free" of constantly trying to make him happy and to keep my job I realized how much better off I was out of that toxic environment. I'm not sure why you're asking about it, but if it's currently happening to you, it might be time to part ways with your company. Also, depending on how your working relationship is with your current manager, I'd recommend having a direct conversation with him/her about it to see what their perspective is. Perhaps between the two of you, a compromise could be made that would allow you autonomy and a happier solution.

At my company, the right way to deal with this is to document the employees performance with an improvement plan with action items and dates, etc. It's a shocking amount of work for the manager, but it either motivates the employee to improve or they leave because they also do not want to do the work, or you're justified in firing them. I had a colleague who has been underperforming for at least 5 years. He's always too busy to get anything done. About 2 years ago I became familiar with this concept because my boss instructed me to help him manage out this colleague. But he wanted to go the "bad" route. It was really so awkward - public humiliation for any mistake, like even being 1 min late to a meeting, for not answering the phone quickly enough, critical questions about every topic, etc. It was out of control and really dragging the whole team down because we could all see it EXCEPT the underperformer. I couldn't participate in that, in the end I went to my boss' boss about it. I have no respect for that type of unprofessional and inhumane treatment. In this case, the WHY it happened in this manner was because the accepted way to do this is a lot of work and my manager didn't want to do it. If you think it's happening to you, have a candid discussion with your management. I feel like at this point you may have nothing to lose and might benefit from some candid feedback or an opportunity to improve. You may also want to be proactive about your resume, etc. If you can't reverse it, better to leave than be fired (which is obviously the objective).