First, thanks for all your responses. Feel really good when someone gets what you're feeling. I am a software engineer and this guy mentioned in his feedback that despite being shown the exact code change required I couldn't fix the bug. I felt bad hearing this..over the course of last 7 years, I have solved many bugs in many different projects. My manager could not give me any specifics of what the exact situation was but I can only guess that this was about a couple incidents where he have incomplete information and there was more to the problem that what we initially thought. For my manager to just take his word effectively means I am so dumb that I can't function despite being handheld which is simply not true. Unfortunately I dont know what incident is being talked about but regardless there definitely would have been something more to it.

Secondly, there was another comment saying that I delivered a negative news to the customer in a way that affected our teams image. Again, I have no idea what incident they are talking about and I dont recollect anyone walking up to me and pointing this out when it happened or even afterward.

It will be an entire year before I can hope to get a better review and then a year from there to get promoted, if at all. I want to move fast in my career and folks who I went to school with are looking forward to getting promoted two levels above where i am. They are already where I'll get in two years. I feel like i am about 3 years behind and it will be hard to catch up.

Regarding the money, I am mai by co scorned about my son's education. I dont want him to have to take out a loan and be under pressure to pay it. I want him to have the freedom to wait for the right job and not be desperate for the paycheck.