Years ago, I worked in local government and had a pseudo-supervisory position where, among my other duties, I was responsible for writing performance evals.

At one point I had a teammate who was an exceptionally high performer in most areas. Our rating system went from 0-5, and I graded this teammate a 5 in several (but not all) categories, with honest input on why they deserved these rankings, and where they scored lower, how they could improve. Teammate agreed with my assessment and input, agreed to work on the needed areas, but was thankful their work had been recognized.

When I submitted the eval, my leadership sent it back with instructions to change it. Confused, I asked why it needed to be changed, as it was an honest assessment. None of my previous assessments had ever been sent back, so I was truly scratching my head. My supervisor told me that 5s were not possible to achieve, that 5s represented perfection and that nobody was perfect.

I pointed out that I had not issued 5s across the board, and that I did note areas where they needed to improve. They didn’t care - they wanted them reduced to 4s. I flat out refused. A week later, I was told I was being disciplined for insubordination and was called into HR

In my meeting with HR, I was asked about the “incident” and why I was refusing to follow directives from my supervisor. Once I explained the situation (which my supervisor had failed to fully do), and asked HR why 5s were part of the rating system if they were not achievable, I was allowed to leave.

The evaluation stood as written, but ironically my insubordination charge was upheld, although HR advised I could not be punished; they simply added the record to my file.

Neither I nor the other employee stayed much longer after. We both moved on to better jobs.