In my experience a lot of people who think they're "carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders" aren't even carrying their own.

Performance reviews are where perception meets reality - on both sides. If you don't work in a union environment then a minimum of an annual performance review should be mandatory. Performance reviews in a union environment are useless since you can't do anything about the slack bastards anyway. If and when you do get a performance review there should be NO SURPRISES - if there is, it demonstrates a complete lack of communication on management's part. An annual review is no time to be telling someone they've been screwing up for the past twelve months !!