Just the facts

[pbray]

Not only do I have to work this weekend, I also have to write up my 2009 accomplishments for my annual performance review. It's part of a bogus corporate game--management emphasizes how important the writeup is in determining your rating, so if you don't get the evaluation you wanted, they can put the blame back on you for not doing a good enough job describing why you were vital to MegaCorp.

In reality, of course, the ratings are already decided, and there's little chance that anything I write will change the results either way. But there's so much stress given to this process that many of my coworkers literally spend days working on their results.

My approach is somewhat simpler. My first draft was easy. "Patricia Bray demonstrated her commitment to delivering global solutions by saving the Earth from alien invasion through deployment of her extended team of invisible robot warriors. This action ensured MegaCorp's survival and was key to MegaCorp achieving its 2009 corporate goals."

I'm thinking with a little polish, I'll be good to go.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I like that draft.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

In a perfect world I ought to be able to submit that.

[jemck.livejournal.com]

Back when I was an HR professional, with responsibility for managing just such a company-wide performance review scheme, reading something like that would have brightened my day no end.

Though that would perhaps have let my secret life out of the bag.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Sadly there are too few people like you, and too many who've had their sense of humor surgically removed.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

My brother would love to receive this in an evaluation, but I doubt any of my supervisors would go for it.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

That looks better than my draft. I wonder if something like that would fly for my employer, or whether they'd just try to put me in a straitjacket.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

If only I could bring one of my robot warriors to my evaluation, all would be good. But since they're done over the phone....

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

...demonstrated her commitment to delivering global solutions by saving the Earth from alien invasion through deployment of her extended team of invisible robot warriors. This action ensured MegaCorp's survival and was key to MegaCorp achieving its 2009 corporate goals."

I am so totally swiping this for my "self-evaluation document."

[pbray.livejournal.com]

We should make it a meme.

[larryhammer]

I hate those performance reviews things. This year I am looking forward to it even less, as due to being reorg'd at the exact wrong time my group slipped between corporate cracks and do not currently have any goals to perform against -- and there's no way it's not going to be held against us.

---L.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Like most games, it's rigged against you from the start.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Why polish? It's perfect as it is! Well, maybe a little elaboration...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Should I name which aliens were invading? How many ships they had? Or just keep it short and sweet...

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

It's a good question.

Does it sound more impressive to have invisible robots who repelled an alien attack, or who repelled 53 attacking Cappellans?

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

My boss would laugh her a$$ off if I put that on my review form.

Then she would send it back to me for a rewrite, because her boss has no sense of humour. At all.

I hate performance reviews with a burning white-hot passion. Not mine so much, because it's just another chore, but doing reviews for my staff. Ugh.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

honestly, I think the same would happen to me.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I've had bosses like that, including one who used to offer to let her employees spin "The Wheel of Appraisal" rather than going thru the formal writeup. None of us ever took her up on it, though...

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

No, I can see where that wouldn't be too tempting...

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

I think that is an great review - If I turned such a thing in (I now do one every THREE years, the first of which is due this year. As you can imagine that is both a blesing and a curse) my sup would Not Be Pleased. My director would not even notice.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

The only thing worse was when we had to collect "peer input" from our coworkers for these reviews. That was a special circle of hell....

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I sort of like the idea for people higher up getting a 360 review....if they are done properly,. But its horrifying to ask the person UNDER review to collect the reviews themselves.

[fireun.livejournal.com]

umph. i used to hate doing my yearly review.

though mine were never as good as the draft you have here. perhaps if i had asked you to write them my store would not have been closed as they would have realized how important i was to the survival of the bookstore, not to mention the human race.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

in the end, it all comes down to the robots. if they'd known your army of minions included not just loyal employees but also death-dealing robots, well, then, who knows?

[vespican.livejournal.com]

Reviews, Evaluations, call them what you will, they are a pain in the ___.
It doesn't matter if you write your own, or write those of other group members. One trend I saw while in the Navy was that nearly everyone got rated at the top level. Then it became necessary to rank everyone within that top level. "Petty Officer Smith is ranked seventh amongst seventeen '4.0' first class petty officers in this command." "3.0" was supposed to be the average typical sailor, but it you actually gave an individual those marks, you were in effect telling everyone that he/she was a "dirt bag." More consciencious commands also insisted that the written comments match the numerical scores given.
Dave

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Yup, we've got rankings too.