Annual Performance Review

This is almost the longest I have ever held a job! (record: about a year)

have I achieved my objectives?
where can I improve?
strengths?

(xp - I get a raise? Even a tiny one would be good)

Then I quit.

mini-paragraph is nothing. although if you are interested in career advancement (my guess is NO) then I suggest writing a detailed two pager listing everything you've done the entire year and try to make it sound like it made them money, saved them money, or increased efficiency. You can also request a salary adjustment commensurate with the bloated ones they always list for jobs at places like salary.com, but that only ever worked for me once, and then I was laid off a month later because I was the highest paid person in the department. so tread lightly

xp oh, I see

At my last job, I had an annual review. I went in and pleaded my case - I'm such a great worker! Look at how I saved you $10,000 in just one transaction! and I even typed up a 2 page letter showing everything I accomplished in just one week - and then got a 10 cents an hour raise. Bastards!

much safer in the middle.

I mean, the other people in my "team" are a beat poet, an actor and an xtreme frisbee champion!

yeah, the last place i worked at was like that, I forgot. I gave myself 4s and was told "only the CTO gets to give himself that." Oh, ok.

are they going to show you how to shoot a gun?

Actually, this reminds me of a one-act play I was once in, called Touch Choices for the New Century. It's staged as a motivational seminar on "preparedness," and one of the characters is a brassy woman from Dallas who instructs the audience on how to use a gun in self-defense.

Then I wrote the same paragraph 5 or 6 times and signed it.

i hate the rhetoric of "job performance."

It's been three months for me!

Also, I hate how my company wants to rate everything from 1 (the worst) to 5 (the best), but doesn't believe in awarding 5's because "there's always room for improvement."

Oh, yeah? Show me anyone else who can kick in a recorded adlib to play from the button bar while switching the cords in the back of the zephyr around for a redial all the while getting the coach back on the line WITH NOT ONE SECOND OF DEAD AIR. I work it like a ballerina with that shit.

Um, maybe it's a good thing that I haven't had my evaluations yet.

My boss rated me higher than I did and said many wonderful things.

Now I can relax.

That was like my first job in NYC, but really junior admin stuff. Development people got paid hella money to plan chichi lunches with Page Six types, only to return to office and spend all afternoon having bulimia episodes.

Guy at my last work did his MBA after hours, mostly remote. Some ivy league school too, tho I can't recall the name.

I think my wife should get an MBA, since she's hit the same kinda ceiling. She's too lazy to do it, I think (so am I, in fairness).

i feel like if i am going to go back to school, i should do something i am excited about. i probably need to just figure out another career.

Maybe you should look at the reading lists for a few courses to see if you'd be bored senseless.

I have a recurring dream about returning to school -- probably sourced in my dropping out of the PhD program ABD -- and in these dreams, I always forget that I'm enrolled in a class until it's time for finals, and then I'm in a lol hueg panic. In a way, I kinda think that's what'd really happen if I went back to study something.

i constantly have those dreams too!

like exactly the same thing. enrolled in a class and forget about it. i have it at least a couple times a month.

i used to have it in college all the time (that dream, that is)

funny thing is, IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO ME IN REAL LIFE!!!!!!!!!

i took a fucking ADOLESCENT LITERATURE class in college, within the first two weeks the prof broke her back and the class was cancelled until further notice. I NEVER GOT THE NOTICE, and one day a classmate from my greek mythology class poked me in the back and asked if i studied for our adolescent lit final AND I WAS LIKE ZOOOOOMMMMGG WTF WTF

i flunked of course

sad that the only class i flunked in college was ADOLESCENT LIT.

superfudge.

i also get those fucking dreams and I haven't been in school for almost a decade.

I like a good combo forgot-the-final and at-school-naked dream.
the trick is to stick to your desk.

ugh I have to conduct four performance reviews next week. My own is in there somewhere too, UGH UGH UGHGUHG U GHG UG HUGH.

I've never had one in this company, yet I'm trying to plan one for a direct report this afternoon. nfi what I'm doing.

:/

i'm gonna be doing these for other people soon god help them

Have this tomorrow. Was just forwarded draft appraisal. Hate this fucking job. I need to start looking for something else but the idea of going through all that again is awful. :/ Also I'm sick and feel awful but had to come in because I got yelled at last week for calling out sick. Fuuuuuck.

"It's sort of an unwritten rule that people don't really use their sick time. Most employees have tons saved up."

. . .

BUT WHAT IF I'M FUCKING SICK?

http://www.theonion.com/articles/180-trillion-leisure-hours-lost-to-work-last-year,1282/

employment, and this can't be stated enough, is evil.

"It's sort of an unwritten rule that people don't really use their sick time. Most employees have tons saved up."

― wolf kabob (ENBB), Monday, March 5, 2012 9:17 AM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sue

I'm essentially a specialized secretary and I resent the hell out of it. I dind't go back to school for my masters degree and put myself in a significant amount of debt to do this shit which is why I don't "give it my all" and perform to the "best of my capability". You think I don't know that? I fucking monkey could do `1/2 the things I do. p'oiqehtj
pq39etu
-[39t0u[t

sue

― lag∞n, Monday, March 5, 2012 9:19 AM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The next time someone says something to that effect I'm asking for it in writing tbh.

yep, thats v uncool of them

its really not such a horrible experience looking for a new job while you already have a job

^^^ always tell people this, it's a lot easier too cos u don't feel the same pressure

yah and prospective employers will think higher of you cause you have a job

x-posts

Yeah, I know. I just hate the whole business. At least it's not a situation where I HAVE to get something ASAP and need to take the first things which comes my way (how I ended up here btw). I need to approach it with more positivity but this morning I get to be angry because I hate them and also because sick.

I always hated these when I was a tech writer, but I never feared them. I was on good terms with my supervisor and we communicated often and in depth about what I was accomplishing, so the annual review just seemed like a weird dance we had to do to justify any raise I might get.

"New objectives"? How about I just keep doing what I'm doing until technology necessitates a change, or you lay me off because I'm making too much? And thus my supervisor doesn't have to figure out new ways to reinvent the wheel?

HATE HATE HATE performance reviews.

Mine is this afternoon; wish me luck.

good luck!!

Good luck!

Postponed to Monday afternoon. BLAH.

That's just cruel.

I have an annual meeting with the management but it's not very detailed -- two years they've basically given no feedback, and one year they were like "we heard from someone about a time when you failed to make it clear that you were busy with other projects and then you didn't have as much time to devote to their project as was needed" -- just about that vague, and I was thinking "I literally have no idea what the fuck you are talking about but ok"

you gotta fight ambiguity with ambiguity

one good response to "we heard from someone about a time when you failed to make it clear that you were busy with other projects and then you didn't have as much time to devote to their project as was needed" is "i will explore opportunities to identify the times when i failed to clear enough time for a project and take action as appropriate"

"I am already implementing solutions"

always already implementing solutions

This opacity sounds great. In Sales someone just looks at a spreadsheet and tells you if you can come back next year.

honestly have no idea how these work with this new company

all i know so far is ~we have an annual performance review~ and the rest it is a mystery

Just finished my last one--the next, five years from now, would be in my retirement year, and I think they give you a pass inside of two years. ("This guy's incompetent...we just noticed now!")

Just finished my annual review (without my getting medieval on my TL's or PM's ass \o/)! I still hate the concept and process, but hey.

Also, the PM hinted that she regards me as Team Lead material. LOL no. I do not see myself as the stuff of which management is made.

FUCK this

due by 5pm on the first day after a holiday break

At least our corporate overlords do not insist on Maoist self-criticism 'struggle' sessions.

these can be p stupid but i would make what u want out of it; it's just a generic form to prompt your thoughts. i never stick to the exact structure. also always a good opportunity to talk about what you did right!

Hate that shit so much. This will be the third year in a row where my superiors will passively mention certain unfulfilled work goals that I've passively assented to year after year and never fulfilled and never had any intention of fulfilling because they have no intention of paying me to fulfill goals above and beyond my day-to-day responsibilities so...yeah. Fuck that.

just bc they're you're supervisors doesn't mean they are your superiors! big difference. we're all just people here, i don't really care what your title is tbh.

i think the biggest pain about these is just the bureaucratic paperwork and having to summarize the work ive done in dumb HR terms

xpost Yeah, I don't really sweat that because no one's the boss of me.</gen-x>