Thinking Inside the Box: the Dreaded Performance Review

Published by Brad H. on January 23rd, 2008 in Humor, Work | 14 Comments

Please welcome Brad Hilderbrand, a fellow twentysomething and all around funny guy. Brad will be writing for Employee Evolution on Wednesdays to help us keep the mood light and remember that a good musing can go a long way when the workweek is only half over. Hang in there and enjoy.

If there's one day every employee dreads it's performance review day. Bad employees get their comeuppance for that hour-long nap they take every afternoon, while good employees start sweating every little thing they could have done over the past six months to raise their boss' ire.

Remember that one day back in October when you left five minutes early on a Friday so you could meet up with your buddies to go to a haunted house? Yeah, that's probably going to come up. So it was with great trepidation and anxiety that I recently faced my execution…I mean review.

I trudged to work that day and the clock slowed to an absolute crawl. My review was at 10 a.m. and every minute took longer to pass than the last. By the time 9:50 rolled around I felt as though I had gone through three lifetimes; in one of them I was a pirate. That was a good one.

At 9:55 I realized I COULD make a break for it. By the time they knew I was gone I'd be halfway to Canada, and we all know they don't do performance reviews there, it's too cold. Knowing my luck though the exits were sealed, and any attempt at escape would be thwarted by the chip I'm still sure they implanted in my brain during that dreadfully boring orientation video.

While lost in my thoughts I lost track of the time…10 a.m. The governor wasn't calling and I wasn't getting a pardon, time to face the music.

I showed up at my boss' office. "Come on in, close the door," she said. Those last three words portend doom.

No matter what happens now, no one is coming to save me, I'm alone. I'm going to have to think fast now. The time I was doing the shopping online, well that was because my wife's birthday was coming up and she couldn't know what I was getting her. The fact that I'm writing this very post during work hours, well this is a recruitment tool you see, liable to bring more people into our little working community once they see we can laugh at each other.

I looked at my boss and she began, "Let's see what there is to talk about…"

Have those words ever been followed by something good? It's not like that sentence ends with "…would you like a $2,000 raise and the candy bar of your choice?" No, normally it's more along the lines of "…you know how we've been talking about making sure the company runs at peak efficiency? Well you're what we consider to be non-essential personnel."

Most of the conversation was typical boring office tripe. Mainly the boss telling me that I'm doing a good job and that an internal investigation had determined I probably didn't start the fire that nearly wiped out the Accounting Department.

The crux of our conversation focused on burnout and finding meaning for my work. Funny thing is, I'm not the first person to feel this way. I'm the third person to hold this position, and my two predecessors quit because they just felt like they were repeatedly running headlong into a wall. And every time they asked management why they were running headlong into said wall, management said, "It's for the good of the order. Now back to work, you're not bleeding enough to take a lunch break."

So obviously, it couldn't be the work that drove us all crazy, nope we must all just not be doing it right.

My boss and I agreed that I should take some vacation time. Of course, we all know there's no better time to be outside than in January when the daily highs only reach the double digits on special occasions. The boss thinks I should go somewhere tropical; I think she should buy the plane ticket and finance the hotel accommodations. So instead I sit in my little felt box, looking at pictures of tropical places and trying to contain my rage.

So yeah, the review went well. And in a couple weeks I'm taking two whole days off in the height of winter to "de-stress." Hopefully writing this weekly column won't be hampered; obviously they expect me to come back with all my cynicism cleansed and sarcastic tones wiped away.

But fear not dear readers, I'm planning on being here for a while.