The Dreaded Performance Review
If you've read my novel, One Clown Short, you know about the chapter on performance reviews at work. Every company has them and after you have more than two or three in your working life, you may have come to the realization of how ridiculous they can be.
I recently returned to work full time in a supervisory position. I only have two direct reports but I hit the jackpot and had to write a review for one of them after only being on board for a couple months. The new company's form had all the standard categories, customer service, productivity, conduct and the like. Each section had five boxes for me to check, labeled left to right, one through five.
This person is doing a good job and so I gave her mainly 3's and 4's for average and above average. I told her I was sending the review, she works in an office in another part of the state, and would she please read it, gather her thoughts and then we would discuss it. Fine. Off it went.
Later that day the phone rings, "Can I ask you something about my review?' she asks.
"Sure," I say.
"On the overall rating, how did you rate me?" she asked with hesitation.
"Let me look." I ran my finger down the page to the spot. "I gave you a 4 which is an above average."
"Oh. Can you look at the last page at the ratings and their meanings."
I scrolled to the very last page. In tiny little print were the ratings. One is outstanding, two is above average all the way down to five which means unsatisfactory. Oops!
I have written hundreds of performance reviews over the years. Never has a 1 been the best score a person could receive. What happened to the good ol' on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest? I apologized profusely for subjecting a good employee to that kind of panic. Nothing will ever undo how she felt she was being treated.
For me, the lesson was learned. While writing, I enjoyed making ridiculous fun of the dreaded performance review. I created ratings of "You Suck" and "You suck less than the other guy". Maybe those would work better than a backward scale utilizing numbers. But in real life the performance review managed to come back and bite me in the shorts. What goes around, comes around.
I call it a book worthy moment.
I recently returned to work full time in a supervisory position. I only have two direct reports but I hit the jackpot and had to write a review for one of them after only being on board for a couple months. The new company's form had all the standard categories, customer service, productivity, conduct and the like. Each section had five boxes for me to check, labeled left to right, one through five.
This person is doing a good job and so I gave her mainly 3's and 4's for average and above average. I told her I was sending the review, she works in an office in another part of the state, and would she please read it, gather her thoughts and then we would discuss it. Fine. Off it went.
Later that day the phone rings, "Can I ask you something about my review?' she asks.
"Sure," I say.
"On the overall rating, how did you rate me?" she asked with hesitation.
"Let me look." I ran my finger down the page to the spot. "I gave you a 4 which is an above average."
"Oh. Can you look at the last page at the ratings and their meanings."
I scrolled to the very last page. In tiny little print were the ratings. One is outstanding, two is above average all the way down to five which means unsatisfactory. Oops!
I have written hundreds of performance reviews over the years. Never has a 1 been the best score a person could receive. What happened to the good ol' on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest? I apologized profusely for subjecting a good employee to that kind of panic. Nothing will ever undo how she felt she was being treated.
For me, the lesson was learned. While writing, I enjoyed making ridiculous fun of the dreaded performance review. I created ratings of "You Suck" and "You suck less than the other guy". Maybe those would work better than a backward scale utilizing numbers. But in real life the performance review managed to come back and bite me in the shorts. What goes around, comes around.
I call it a book worthy moment.
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