LJ Idol: Week 16 - Reinventing the Wheel
Towards the end of April, packets of paperwork will leave HR and make the long journey into the hands of employees. Once distributed, these packets will cause eyes to roll and grumbles to begin, feathers will be rustled and cocks will begin waving about. (Not literally. That would be indecent exposure, if not sexual harassment.)
The cause for the frustration and annoyance?
Ye olde Annual Self-Evaluations.
Given that nearly 50% of our total staff falls on one supervisor, and 35% onto another, the company has decided that it would streamline the process if each employee filled out their own evaluation and reviewed it with their supervisor. This drops the per-employee time from 30-40 minutes to 5-10 minutes. While I understand the logic behind the new process, it is still a loathesome task for everyone involved.
There are three pages to complete, each one more hair-pulling than the last. The worst, however, is the final page. Here is where you get to set not one but two (!) goals for yourself for the coming year, and they should be goals that pertain to the company and your job.
We joke that this is the page where you lay out your master plan for reinventing the wheel. For some people - supervisors and managers, for example - this is a reasonable section. "I want to streamline the operations manuals and code them into an easy-to-locate binder system" or "I want to implement a reward structure to help reduce errors." But what about us peons? We just want to do our job correctly and stay employed. Not an acceptable answer, however, so we bullshit our way through this part by picking some random little task that is already being done and just put a spin on it, make it look new.
Last year, I filled out the self evaluation on a whim, since I was still only a temp employee and was still expecting to go back to unemployed when the girl I was covering for got back from her leave. Throwing out BS answers just because, what the heck, is going to come back to bite me in the ass soon. This year, I'll come up with better goals. Like "I will complete Microsoft's free tutorials for Excel 2010 so that I can figure out how to use the stupid program without cursing."
** ** ** ** **
It was this or my husband's idea of a post-apocolyptic society of cockroaches that need to develop a transport system for their queen, Cher. Fun as that might have been... No. Here be this week's offering to the therealljidol gods. To further please them, please provide a ticky in the little box next to my name - and the name of any other offering that pleased you.
Catch ya later, aligator!
The cause for the frustration and annoyance?
Ye olde Annual Self-Evaluations.
Given that nearly 50% of our total staff falls on one supervisor, and 35% onto another, the company has decided that it would streamline the process if each employee filled out their own evaluation and reviewed it with their supervisor. This drops the per-employee time from 30-40 minutes to 5-10 minutes. While I understand the logic behind the new process, it is still a loathesome task for everyone involved.
There are three pages to complete, each one more hair-pulling than the last. The worst, however, is the final page. Here is where you get to set not one but two (!) goals for yourself for the coming year, and they should be goals that pertain to the company and your job.
We joke that this is the page where you lay out your master plan for reinventing the wheel. For some people - supervisors and managers, for example - this is a reasonable section. "I want to streamline the operations manuals and code them into an easy-to-locate binder system" or "I want to implement a reward structure to help reduce errors." But what about us peons? We just want to do our job correctly and stay employed. Not an acceptable answer, however, so we bullshit our way through this part by picking some random little task that is already being done and just put a spin on it, make it look new.
Last year, I filled out the self evaluation on a whim, since I was still only a temp employee and was still expecting to go back to unemployed when the girl I was covering for got back from her leave. Throwing out BS answers just because, what the heck, is going to come back to bite me in the ass soon. This year, I'll come up with better goals. Like "I will complete Microsoft's free tutorials for Excel 2010 so that I can figure out how to use the stupid program without cursing."
** ** ** ** **
It was this or my husband's idea of a post-apocolyptic society of cockroaches that need to develop a transport system for their queen, Cher. Fun as that might have been... No. Here be this week's offering to the therealljidol gods. To further please them, please provide a ticky in the little box next to my name - and the name of any other offering that pleased you.
Catch ya later, aligator!