I was driving to work in Ypsilanti at the end of July, thinking about how it had been a year or so since I hired on, and I was thinking about annual performance reviews.
I don’t know what the people that give these reviews are thinking, but I think they are just awful.
Here’s how mine used to go when I had to endure them:
1) Chit-chaty bullshit about how these are required by the administration, and have been revised again this year, and sorry about how this is about six or eight months late.
2) Exemplary employee, yada, yada, essentially empty platitudes, nothing specific about anything I had done well.
3) Blindside unattributed stuff about how I rubbed someone the wrong way at some point in the past year or more. Maybe something about how I seem to keep to myself, and don’t engage in any social chit-chat (that which I despise). (Me: Thinking about trying to do more than half the work of what three people used to do, and having been on-call for about the last decade – yeah, I might not be doing ‘office politics’ very well. Nor do I suffer fools or people that think out loud.)
4) Some reminder that the budget is tight, essential travel only, don’t spend any money you don’t have to (Wherein the internal dialog is: WTF, there’s people that are spending money they don’t have to?)
5) Some personal goal, or training, or something like that for the coming year. Right, and it can’t cost any money. (Me: Survive another year until I qualify for health care after I retire)
6) Do you have a comment about my supervision? (Me: Yes, I do. Innumerable. How exactly is it to my benefit to say anything when I haven’t seen any signs of change in the past?)
7) Sign here. (Me: No thanks – let me review this document for a day or two, and then I’ll sign
You might have experienced something similar.
And then it hit me: I have done a similar process evaluating myself. As Philip K. Dick says, ‘The problem with introspection is that it has no end.’
1) Skip that. No chit-chat needed with myself.
2) Vague recollections of something I did well in the last year.
3) So nit-picky, so harsh, too many recollections of what I didn’t do well – a lot of should-ing on myself.
4) Always the careful spender.
5) Personal goal? Really trying to care better for my mental and emotional health.
6) You really should lighten up on yourself. You’re better than you think you are.
7) Let’s repeat the process again. Tomorrow.
You might have experienced something similar.
And that’s when I said: ‘That can stop, right now.’
And I started just looking at today. What did I do that was kind? What did I see or feel that was pleasing? What do I need to let go of? Where’s my growing edge?
Don’t wait. Just today. Only today.
Here’s an article that I bookmarked a long time ago, and I need to re-read it occasionally: https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-see-yourself-clearly-skip-the-introspection-mode-c66bfb05c061
Be kind,
Harold
Feather in the Wilderness 
Well, you know I’ve experienced exactly what you have! (I’d disagree with them about the chit chat! That’s how we got to be friends! Well, part of it, anyway.) But you make an excellent point. One day at a time. I remind myself of that frequently and more so lately. It’s the best strategy I know.
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Harold,
There is one performance review you may never have had. Although I’m sure there are others like me who could provide a similar review. By way of chit-chat, I’m sorry that it’s about 25 years late.
You have certainly been an exemplary employee. I believe that must be true anywhere you’ve worked, but I’ll focus on what I know, from old radio days at WKAR. Platitude, perhaps, but trust that it’s fulsome and not empty.
Of course, I’m turning this around. I wasn’t your boss. I was just a student employee and you were my sometime supervisor. But more than that, to me you were a teacher. I knew precious little of office politics then, though I understand much more of it in hindsight. I remember some of the moves and moods behind some of your comments. But what I really remember is that you always made time for me, even when all I really did was pester you with chit-chat.
It wasn’t just chit chat. You shared more technical info with me than I ever needed to know in my job at the time: radio spectrum, wave analysis, satellite uplink/downlink, various broadcasting equipment maintenance; generally how a lot of gizmos worked…when all the job really entailed was pushing buttons on cue. I had some curiosity about technical things, but you cultivated it in me more than I ever would have on my own. You taught me how to solder. You showed me the ins and outs of mics and cables and consoles, and quite a bit about audio engineering and production.
I eventually completed a Telecom degree at MSU and that was the end of my student employment. I went through the fits and starts of early post-college jobs. Eventually–almost by accident–I wound up working for AT&T (Ameritech, back then), where all the seeds of that technical chit-chat bore ripe and tremendous fruit for a real career.
I’ve had 22 annual performance reviews at AT&T companies. I’ve seen and felt everything you’ve described, although I’ve been lucky and the good outweighs the bad. It’s never lost on me that before he became the successful Dilbert cartoonist, Scott Adams worked at another AT&T company (Pacific Bell). It explains so much…
Anyway, I really should take the time to thank you for teaching me so much I didn’t know about all that technical stuff. But I should also thank you for teaching me some things about family life and lifestyles, and some starter lessons on raising small children, about which I knew even less as I was starting a very young family in the early 90s. I learned a lot of “little” things that you might not remember teaching me, but that I never forgot, even after 25 years.
Yes, the annual performance review is just awful. Usually. And it is important to look at each day, today, and live as fully as you can. But I hope it’s alright if I share this particular review. Some things are worth looking back on and acknowledging.
From another favorite Dilbert strip: “I give you the highly coveted ‘meets expectations’ designation…if having high expectations of you is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.”
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Thank you, Bill, for the very kind thoughts and words. You were there when I was at my best, and I really enjoy teaching (even to the point of too much information). I’m still a keeper of arcane, and frankly, archaic knowledge of radio broadcasting. It seems like as long as there are high-power tube transmitters, I’ll continue to be called out of retirement to re-tube and tune the beasts. All the best to you, Bill.
Harold
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