it is a trick that they use to get rid of an employee without calling it a downsizing.

2 hours to get a program done? It should take weeks at least if it is a complex program. Their expectations are too unfair, unless it is just changing the font type, the labels, and the colors of the program.

Beware that sometimes when it works great in the test environment that something on the production machine can foul things up. For example I wrote an ASP page to do a report and cache the report to a text file to speed things up so it only updates the page once a day. It worked fine on the development and test servers, but died on the production machine because someone set the directory the text page was stored in to read only. Then they refused to change the rights to that directory, and it ruined the whole program. Was it my fault that it didn't work? Not the way I see it, as I didn't have admin access to the production server to check the rights for the iusr**** account. Basically I was set up to fail, as I expect you were.

Tricks they teach in management class:

#1 Shread any documents that excuse the employee for illneses and then count the sick days against them.

#2 Set them up to fail. For task requirements change months to weeks, and weeks to hours. Do what you can to foil things for them. Give vauge task descriptions and then claim they didn't do everything they were told. If they ask questions about the vauge descriptions say they have poor communication skills.

#3 Accept every rumor told about them as being true, chalk it up to "suspicion".

#4 Claim that they are doing personal business at work. If they are reading a book during lunch hour, claim they were reading the book during work hours. If they get a phone call from a vendor, claim it is a personal phone call, or that they spend too many hours talking to vendors.

#5 Monitor their web activities, if they visit Yahoo Clubs for programming info, claim it is a personal club, do the same for ASPTODAY.COM and others. Exagerate on the time used on the web so that minutes become hours. Treat visits to MICROSOFT.COM, etc as PORNO sites or other sites the employee shouldn't be visiting. If you can, get the people in IS/IT to create a fake log.

#6 Give them probation, and then wait a few weeks and make up something to get rid of them. Say you suspect they broke the rules, and then let them go. Keep screwing with them after they leave the company so that you can justify your poor review on them.

they figured that after 4 years, I have already done all I can for them, and I was earning too much of a salary for my position. 4 years of good reviews, and then one big awful review that makes mountains out of molehills, and fabercates the rest.

Correct, the higher ups in HR have no idea of what I am doing, my immediate supervisor is the one who reports to them what I am doing. He all of a sudden stopped seeing things my way, because he or the higher ups wanted to be rid of me. I could only prove it in court if they haven't already shreaded the documents or email or meeting minutes related to their decision to get rid of me. Being a lawfirm, they like to get rid of evidence, like my doctor's excuse notes for when I was out sick. Who knows what else they shreaded?

According to ex-coworkers, they haven't replaced me yet in that position. So they either eliminated my position and were too chicken sh*t to call it a downsizing, or they cut $5X,XXX USD out of their budget and decided to get rid of me because my salary was that high.

I also spoke about forming an IT union, and that could have done it as well.