> is totally and utterly soul destroying to a person?

To some, it is, and to others, it isn't.

I wonder: Is your question a byproduct of some type of educational system which had a lot of grade inflation and people get passed on to the next year no matter how poor their progress?

In my school/high school, if you got an F in one subject, you'd be held back for the whole year. In my university, they didn't grade on a curve, and had clearly delineated thresholds for A, B, C, etc. The engineering department worked hard to ensure only competent people could get an A or B (you didn't need to be brilliant - merely competent).

By the time you get a job, you should be able to handle feedback along the lines of "You're performance is not good enough for this job". With good management, this isn't a shock, and you should have gotten messaging about performance for quite a while prior to being handed a PIP. Not all management is good, though.

It should not be an identity crisis. No one is good enough for any job, and for any team. You should not go on in life thinking you'll not fail. You won't grow much that way.

I've seen management at times give the employee a ton of leeway. A friend of mine was in a SW team, and he decided he didn't like coding. The manager worked with him to give him an alternate role that was mostly related to customer support. When they'd come with a bug report or query, he'd study the (large) code base and help them if they were doing something wrong, or file a proper bug report with the team.

He still sucked (and knew it). He started working reduced hours (with the manager's approval) to handle the stress.

I kept telling him to go find another job if this one doesn't suit him. He had other skills - he'd done HW work professionally at the same company prior to switching to SW.

This went on for two years before they finally put him on a PIP and fired him. He had a grace period of two years to find another job, but didn't.

The real problem is the unfair PIP - where they want to fire you for reasons other than your performance. It begins with escalating demands that you cannot fulfill, and they use that as a pretext to put you on a PIP.

Anti-disclaimer: I've been on a (very unfair) PIP and was practically fired. Everyone I know at the company who's been on a PIP was fired. So when I say all of the above, trust me, I know the dark side of PIPs. I think they are primarily a tool to get rid of person and the manager is usually not honestly trying to redeem the person.

But even in those cases, it shouldn't be even close to "soul destroying". It's simply the equivalent of getting dumped by a boy/girl friend. Sucks, but it's expected. You move on.