If you can meet their goals, that just means there is more they can squeeze out of you. The incentive structure for our corporations means there is literally never enough and they will always demand more.
Reminds how in USSR - a planned economy - your achievements sweet spot was like 103-105% of the plan. Achievement below plan were punished, financially and by some form of public shaming. Hitting exact 100% looked like you don't have the genuine enthusiasm of a communism builder. Achievements above plan were encouraged, financially and by public recognition. Yet achievements well above plan meant that the plan was set too low.
Wrt. the original article - any META employee should be capable of running some xClaw to imitate reasonable activity satisfying whatever KPIs are established for them including submitting of the off-tracking requests following a reasonable pattern.
I remember how almost 30 years ago at one moment the only guy in our team who filed the status report was the one on vacation - he had a cron-script which didn't take vacation into account.
This dynamic might not even been so bad if there was some honesty and graciousness behind it. Some friggin humanity. It’s not so cold to understand and systematize the natural tension between expectation and reality and effort.
Once again at the end of the day the problem is more likely the profit motive above all else
“These dynamics exist specifically to wring the humanity out of any and all processes”
Who designed the processes? Reptilians?
Whatever the flaws of the dynamic, I would guess there is something innately human and organic about it, not designed. Just another weird outcome of the efficiency machine of social evolution.
I've seen that same policy in regular corporations. Giving any member of a team 5/5 meant a personal phone call with HR and your skip level to justify it, while the message was sent unofficially beforehand that having that meeting would be bad for a manager's career.
when I had >8 direct reports I was usually allowed to give a single 5/5, greatly exceeds expectations, etc, but it was also made clear to me in unrecorded formats that I also better have someone with a failing score if I did that.