Your article can be reinforced by the Ribbon Farm analysis of "The Office" [1]. What you have stated about over-performance seems to line up nicely with the "clueless" in that hierarchy.
To quote from Ribbon Farm article: "The simple reason is that if you over-perform at the Loser level, it is clear that you are an idiot. You’ve already made a bad bargain, and now you’re delivering more value than you need to, making your bargain even worse. Unless you very quickly demonstrate that you know your own value by successfully negotiating more money and/or power, you are marked out as an exploitable clueless Loser. "
I will have to check them out and possibly emotionally prepare myself since living through seeing this in a large company is hilarious and sad at the same time.
To quote from Ribbon Farm article: "The simple reason is that if you over-perform at the Loser level, it is clear that you are an idiot. You’ve already made a bad bargain, and now you’re delivering more value than you need to, making your bargain even worse. Unless you very quickly demonstrate that you know your own value by successfully negotiating more money and/or power, you are marked out as an exploitable clueless Loser. "
[1] http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...