Your manager can try to hold you back or make your job harder than necessary if want to get rid of you. They can start to throw unnecessary obstacles your way just to make your job harder, so they can put you on a progression plan. It is like being in a barrel of crabs if you are around a manager that is on the way out due to job performance. Of course their excuse is that "you" the associate is not performing and that is why their numbers are not where they should be. Make sure your manager has a degree!!! My manager didn't even have an Associates degree, much less a Bachelors degree. I am still trying to figure out what idiots put him in management. It happened to me twice, where I was placed with a manager that has less of an education than I did.