Is this one of those "because you consistently gave 140% percent they now make 140% your 100%" kind of deals?
My boss gets his goal from his boss who gets it from his boss and as the goal gets passed down it gets dispersed amongst us. You don't disperse it where you don't think you'll get it. So yeah, I think there's a bit of what you suggest in there. I will say I'm not the only person that had such an increase. It's an odd year for a number of reasons. Lots of uncertainty where I work and in my industry.
Another item I consider a bad - in fact, poisonous - business habit is the policy some corporations take about year-end ratings - you know, like "meets," "exceeds," etc - and their prevalence. More succinctly, companies who decide that departments should provide such ratings on an enforced bell curve, much as in say a high level college math course. Only so many people can exceed, meet, and so on. Not only can this potentially produce false ratings (we have filled our quota of this rating so we are giving you a different one) but it can create an extremely competitive atmosphere. It almost encourages fucking over your teammates to ensure that you're not unfortunate enough to be the least-best at your job, even if "least best" still means "working up to requirements and/or satisfaction." In addition I posit it's more harmful than a math class or similar; you don't get to graduate or leave the scenario at the end of a semester. Instead you are continually, for years even, competing with the same people. I think this can lead to an entrenched atmosphere of "every man for himself" as well as long-held resentment. It also, in a weird way, makes me grateful for the obviously incompetent people. I see someone flailing and I think "well, I know who's getting 'does not meet' and it ain't me, it's this jawn." I shouldn't have to rely on other people to be incompetent in order to feel secure about the status of my year-end review and general performance.
Know who should get an MBA? NOT YOU! Seriously. You've started to figure out it's bullshit. More than that, you've developed the sense that bullshit is undesirable. Know who should get an MBA? People who cherish the bullshit and can't wait to claim as big a portion of bullshit as they can stuff down their gullets. I won't tell you what to do, but I will caution you that the uneasy feeling you have about the corporate structure you inhabit is going to grow stronger the more you learn about it. There are other things you can do with your life. You're likely to enjoy them more. It's okay to spend some time figuring out what they are.
Today's bullshit: I missed a VA meeting. (It was at a different site than the one I'm located at and immediately before another, day-long meeting I wasn't invited to that most of my VA coworkers were. I didn't realize it was at a different site.) It was free breakfast and a meet-and-greet with some top exec. My VA boss doesn't care that I missed the meeting, but I spoke to my real boss and her disappointment that I didn't get "face time" with this exec was palpable. I don't give a shit about face time with your fucking top execs
compare and contrast. It's like this: Either you want to do this in which case you should get good at it, or you don't want to do this in which case you need to figure out what you do want to do. And you need to do it quickly. There's no point in treading water; time you spend in pursuit of someone else's goals is a gift to them and if they aren't worth giving gifts to, they aren't worth giving your time.
Yeah, well, I do like to yell at pabst and ask him why in the heck he thinks he wants to go into investment banking from time-to-time. Tentatively, this special project that I'm down here for could lead me to a new job [role] and a move to VA. It would be something. I've been talking about moving south for a long time.