Comments on: It’s the Most Wonderful Time, Of the Year http://www.anexperimentinscotch.com/2007/10/its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year/ "I write to discover what I believe." Michael Lopp on Twitter Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:31:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: A Dive Into The Abyss : An Experiment in Scotch http://www.anexperimentinscotch.com/2007/10/its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year/comment-page-1/#comment-2460 A Dive Into The Abyss : An Experiment in Scotch Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:19:59 +0000 http://www.anexperimentinscotch.com/?p=315#comment-2460 [...] as it turns out, my bitching about my self-review was unnecessary. Monday, October 22nd, I quit my job. I actually almost did it the Friday before [...] […] as it turns out, my bitching about my self-review was unnecessary. Monday, October 22nd, I quit my job. I actually almost did it the Friday before […]

]]> By: Scotch Drinker http://www.anexperimentinscotch.com/2007/10/its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year/comment-page-1/#comment-2379 Scotch Drinker Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:42:16 +0000 http://www.anexperimentinscotch.com/?p=315#comment-2379 Wow, OK so your self review process is clearly crappier than my self review process. I think all self-reviews are either touchy-feely political correctness designed to make people feel good about telling you that you suck or ways to screw people out of raises or both. I love career goals that are nebulous. Completely subjective measurement of nebulous goals is another way to show how you aren't doing your job correctly. It's politics of the worst kind and does much to kill what little morale we have. Though I am jealous that you can rate yourself as Absent. I'd like to rate myself as absent a whole lot more. Wow, OK so your self review process is clearly crappier than my self review process. I think all self-reviews are either touchy-feely political correctness designed to make people feel good about telling you that you suck or ways to screw people out of raises or both.

I love career goals that are nebulous. Completely subjective measurement of nebulous goals is another way to show how you aren’t doing your job correctly. It’s politics of the worst kind and does much to kill what little morale we have.

Though I am jealous that you can rate yourself as Absent. I’d like to rate myself as absent a whole lot more.

]]> By: Katy http://www.anexperimentinscotch.com/2007/10/its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year/comment-page-1/#comment-2375 Katy Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:00:07 +0000 http://www.anexperimentinscotch.com/?p=315#comment-2375 Lucky you. We have to do something similar, except we have to rate ourselves on ten dimensions (called "The Expectations") - things like "Manages Conflict Effectively", "Handles Problem-Solving Wisely," and "Builds Trust," and write paragraphs on how we've performed up to scratch. We have to use this utterly ridiculous language to do it too. For instance, instead of ratings like Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, we have to say Excelling, Learning, Doing, Absent. I guess that's so we don't feel bad about ourselves if we get a rating less than Excellent. Personally, thought, being forced to dance around the issue makes me want to shove the Learning and Doing up their Absents. And then our supervisors do the same rating bullshit for us, and we have a come to jesus meeting where we sit down and make sure our answers match. If they don't, then we have to have a fun conversation about why exactly WE think we're performing better than they do, and why we are wrong. And as if that wasn't enough to make you want to choke on your own vomit, then we have to write The Goals, basically our plan of action for the coming year, listing out What Will I Do, How Will I Accomplish It, and How Can My Supervisor Help Me. And god forbid you actually put specific projects as goals; your goals have to be touchy feely crap like "increase my interpersonal skills by attending more human resources seminars" or "try to be at work on time"... things that have nothing to do with how well you do your job. And guess what happens to all this paperwork? It goes up to a file in HR and I'll eat my own underpants if anybody ever actually reads it. Lucky you. We have to do something similar, except we have to rate ourselves on ten dimensions (called “The Expectations”) — things like “Manages Conflict Effectively”, “Handles Problem-Solving Wisely,” and “Builds Trust,” and write paragraphs on how we’ve performed up to scratch. We have to use this utterly ridiculous language to do it too. For instance, instead of ratings like Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, we have to say Excelling, Learning, Doing, Absent. I guess that’s so we don’t feel bad about ourselves if we get a rating less than Excellent. Personally, thought, being forced to dance around the issue makes me want to shove the Learning and Doing up their Absents.

And then our supervisors do the same rating bullshit for us, and we have a come to jesus meeting where we sit down and make sure our answers match. If they don’t, then we have to have a fun conversation about why exactly WE think we’re performing better than they do, and why we are wrong.

And as if that wasn’t enough to make you want to choke on your own vomit, then we have to write The Goals, basically our plan of action for the coming year, listing out What Will I Do, How Will I Accomplish It, and How Can My Supervisor Help Me. And god forbid you actually put specific projects as goals; your goals have to be touchy feely crap like “increase my interpersonal skills by attending more human resources seminars” or “try to be at work on time”… things that have nothing to do with how well you do your job.

And guess what happens to all this paperwork? It goes up to a file in HR and I’ll eat my own underpants if anybody ever actually reads it.

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