Reviews

Today is review day.

I have come to hate reviews.  I do not know that I always did.  The concept of a review, for those of you that have not spent time recently in corporate America, has changed a great deal from when even I entered it.  Once upon a time they were primarily measures of how you had done in the previous year.  You would list how you think you did, your boss would list how you think you did, you would get one or two "Did great at" and one or two "Need to improve on", you would discuss what (if any) your increase was for the year, and you both carry on about your business.

No more.

Now reviews are a vehicle for a whole range of things.  Not just how you did, but how others perceive you did - where you friendly, co-operative, team oriented, goal meeting.  Did you meet the goals that management set for you last year.  And wait - here are the goals that management will set for you this year.  And gathering all the ratings together, this is how you did and this is what more we want from you next year.  And this is your increase for the year.  Sign here acknowledging that you have received the review (even if you do or do not agree with it) and carry on.

I will admit that the last five years have been a tough row to hoe for reviews - so much of the process listed above seems to depend not only on how you actually did but how your boss views you and myself and my former boss definitely had differences - but I have come to value the process a lot less than I used to. Oddly enough, I think the major reason this has changed for me is a combination of goal setting and "ratings".

The goal setting is has become a concern because it becomes the point in the sand that your performance is tied to, regardless of actual events. Even if things change, even if there is a sudden departure from the schedule and you end up doing five other things, it often seems that such efforts have become expected now - and you still did not accomplish your original goals and so you did not do what you should have.

The other part, ratings, is a part that can break you in two ways.  There are various rating systems - three category, five category, numeric, letter, work based - but they all seem to have one problem: the reality of the reward is less than the rating.  If the rating is "high" but the reward is average is takes away from the urge to continue to push - after all, average reward for extra effort becomes difficult to sell after some period.

The other reason is the reward ratings are almost never tied to how to accomplish them - for examples, if I want move from "mediocre" to "extremely competent" the road for what this looks like is never spelled out on the form - and even then, it is subject to the vagaries of corporate politics that can make the efforts of one ordinary and the efforts of another extraordinary, based on how they are viewed.

Sigh.  But this is the world I work in.  So I will screw on my courage and my thick skin suit and hope, perhaps this year, that a meaningful review emerges instead of the seeming exercises in futility of so many years past.