When the Score Didn’t Match the Weight I Carried
Performance can be measured—and still profoundly misunderstood.
An Art of Drinking Water reflection · 5 minute read
The review arrived neatly packaged.
Boxes.
Ratings.
A summary that fit comfortably on a page.
What it didn’t hold was the weight of what I had been carrying.
I had been doing the most—not loudly, not performatively—but consistently.
Holding systems together.
Anticipating problems before they surfaced.
Absorbing work that had nowhere else to land.
I thought the review would reflect that.
Instead, it reduced it.
A lower score than expected.
Language that felt vague.
Feedback that spoke in generalities rather than specifics.
I read it twice, looking for myself.
I wasn’t there.
Performance reviews have power because they pretend to be objective.
Numbers feel neutral.
Ratings feel fair.
But they are only as accurate as the awareness of the person holding the pen.
And this evaluator had no real understanding of the scope of my work—
or worse, no interest in seeing it clearly.
Some leaders don’t want clarity.
They want containment.
When you carry a lot, you become hard to manage.
When you see too much, you disrupt narratives.
When you shine without permission, you challenge fragile hierarchies.
So the score stays low.
Not because the work lacked quality,
but because acknowledging it would require reckoning.
I tried to explain.
I outlined responsibilities that weren’t on paper.
Named contributions that had quietly become expectations.
Spoke to outcomes that existed because I was there.
The response was polite.
Noncommittal.
As if I were describing something theoretical instead of lived.
That’s the part that hurts.
Not the number—but the erasure.
Being evaluated by someone who doesn’t understand your role feels like being graded in a language they never learned.
And when that same person benefits from your labor, the injustice deepens.
I questioned myself.
Was I doing too much?
Was I misreading my impact?
Was I asking to be seen instead of just working harder?
But my body knew the truth.
I was tired from overextension without acknowledgment.
I was frustrated from responsibility without authority.
Water taught me something here.
Water doesn’t measure itself by the container’s markings.
It responds to gravity, not labels.
It finds its level regardless of how it’s scored.
A low rating does not redefine your value.
It reveals the limits of the system assessing you.
Performance reviews often reward visibility over substance.
Ease over complexity.
Compliance over competence.
And those who carry the most are often penalized because their work makes others uncomfortable to evaluate honestly.
I learned to separate feedback from truth.
To listen for what was useful and release what was protective or political.
I stopped trying to earn validation from people who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see me.
If you’ve been given a low score while carrying a disproportionate load, hear this:
You are not failing.
You are not delusional.
You are not asking for too much by wanting your work to be recognized.
Sometimes the evaluation tells you more about the evaluator than it ever could about you.
And sometimes the most honest response to a misaligned score is not to argue—
but to move.
Like water responding to gravity,
you don’t stay where your depth can’t be measured.
You find a place that can hold the truth of what you carry without shrinking it to fit a box.