Annual review: they'll keep me.
I know I do a good job, and I know other people know it, and I also know there's always room for improvement. I told myself to accept constructive criticism and don't beat yourself up when you hear anything negative. I think I did that, and I worked quickly through any slight angst the constructive criticism evoked.
As usual, it popped up in the area of rapport: the matching of personalities, the chit chat. In this case, the person who was conducting the review with me, our office manager, said basically this: 'This is coming from a view you don't have, perhaps a blind spot of yours. We see a number of students come in and when making their appointments, they say they saw you first and now they want to see [other advisor]. Your style doesn't fit with everyone: you tend to get right down to business. We do workshops...' and then she went on to how I can address this. I know this about me, and I'm actively trying to combat it. First off, I address students by name when I come out of my office to greet them. I engage in chit-chat to start appointments: how's your day, how is your semester going, did you notice the sun came out today, I like your [sweater/hat/scarf/earrings/something nifty], etc. Then I segue with "how can I help you today?" I just can't spend too much time with the chit-chat when we only have 30 minutes and I have no way of knowing if the student will take 35 minutes of that or 5. Today, for instance, my first student ran 10 minutes over and would've kept going if I hadn't remembered my next student was waiting already, the second student took about 10 minutes, one student came 15 minutes late and was done in 15, and one student came 10 minutes early and took 25 minutes.
I have a disconnect between ... no, I don't want to put it that way. I build rapport by my affect and attention to the student, not with exposition. Also: for each student who chooses to switch to the other advisor (who you could say is more touchy-feely), there is a student like my last one who left today saying "Thank you so much; you're so organized. I met with you last time and I said 'that's my advisor.' Are you a Scorpio? May? Oh, April, okay." (I don't know what Scorpio has to do with it, but the student was happy, so I'll take it as a compliment.) I might not be everyone's cup of tea, but that falls under the category of "you can't please everyone." I'm still employed and my self-assessment isn't far off from how others assess me, so I will keep on being self-aware and working on stupid freakin' chit-chat.
This entry was originally posted at http://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/614381.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
As usual, it popped up in the area of rapport: the matching of personalities, the chit chat. In this case, the person who was conducting the review with me, our office manager, said basically this: 'This is coming from a view you don't have, perhaps a blind spot of yours. We see a number of students come in and when making their appointments, they say they saw you first and now they want to see [other advisor]. Your style doesn't fit with everyone: you tend to get right down to business. We do workshops...' and then she went on to how I can address this. I know this about me, and I'm actively trying to combat it. First off, I address students by name when I come out of my office to greet them. I engage in chit-chat to start appointments: how's your day, how is your semester going, did you notice the sun came out today, I like your [sweater/hat/scarf/earrings/something nifty], etc. Then I segue with "how can I help you today?" I just can't spend too much time with the chit-chat when we only have 30 minutes and I have no way of knowing if the student will take 35 minutes of that or 5. Today, for instance, my first student ran 10 minutes over and would've kept going if I hadn't remembered my next student was waiting already, the second student took about 10 minutes, one student came 15 minutes late and was done in 15, and one student came 10 minutes early and took 25 minutes.
I have a disconnect between ... no, I don't want to put it that way. I build rapport by my affect and attention to the student, not with exposition. Also: for each student who chooses to switch to the other advisor (who you could say is more touchy-feely), there is a student like my last one who left today saying "Thank you so much; you're so organized. I met with you last time and I said 'that's my advisor.' Are you a Scorpio? May? Oh, April, okay." (I don't know what Scorpio has to do with it, but the student was happy, so I'll take it as a compliment.) I might not be everyone's cup of tea, but that falls under the category of "you can't please everyone." I'm still employed and my self-assessment isn't far off from how others assess me, so I will keep on being self-aware and working on stupid freakin' chit-chat.
This entry was originally posted at http://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/614381.html. Please comment there using OpenID.