You will never get an Exceeds Expectations in any area of your performance review apparently. You can quantitatively, measurably exceed management's expectations and you will still never be given that rating. This contributes to the perception that opportunity for internal advancement is very stagnant, particularly when annual salary bumps do not meet cost of living increases. A lot of effort is spent managing incidents in waterfall fashion and project planning for larger efforts ends up never happening. Lots of "yes, it's done" but only occasionally does that mean "yes, it's also well-documented" (the firm's smart use of AI is well-suited to handle the missing parts there).