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Nothing In Moderation
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Humor - but also a touch of truth, does that make it satire?
THE PURPOSE OF PERFORMANCE REVIEWS - by Dave Barry
One of life's most frightening and degrading experiences in every employee's life is the annual Performance Review. In theory, the Performance Review process can be thought of as a positive interaction between a "coach" and an employee, working together to achieve maximum performance. In reality, it's more like finding a dead squirrel in your backyard and deciding the best solution is to fling it onto your neighbor's roof. Then your obnoxious neighbor takes it off the roof and flings it back, as if he had the right to do that. Ultimately, nobody's happy, least of all the squirrel.
Theory aside, your manager's real objectives for the Performance Review are:
- Make you work like a Roman orchard slave.
- Obtain a signed confession of your crimes against productivity.
- Justify your low salary.
Your objective as an employee is to milk as much unearned money as possible out of the cold, oppressive entity that masquerades as an employer while it sucks the life-force out of your body. Luckily for you, I am on your side.
The key to your manager's strategy is tricking you into confessing your shortcomings. Your boss will latch on to those shortcomings like a pit bull on a trespasser's buttocks. Once documented, your "flaws" will be passed on to each new boss you ever have, serving as justification for low raises for the rest of your life.
Your only defense against your boss's "development trap" is to identify development needs in yourself that don't sound so bad:
- I need to become less attractive so co-workers are not constantly distracted.
- In the interest in teamwork, I need to learn to control my immense intelligence in the presence of less gifted co-workers.
- I need to learn how to relax instead of working my typical nineteen-hour days.
- I need to make contact with an alien civilization since their technology is the only thing I don't understand.
STRATEGY FOR PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
You know you deserve more money than you're getting, based on two undeniable facts:
1) You show up most of the time.
2) See number one.
WRITING YOUR OWN PERFORMANCE REVIEW
Your boss will ask you to document your accomplishments as input for your Performance Review. To the unprepared employee, this might seem like being forced to dig one's own grave. But after studying this chapter, you will come to view it more like a jewelry store fantasy:
JEWELRY STORE FANTASY
Imagine your boss as a wealthy but clueless jewelry store owner. He gives you these instructions before leaving for a long vacation. “When nobody's around, count up how many rubies are in that huge sack in the back. I've wondered about that for years."
Performance Reviews can be like a big bag of uncounted rubies. It doesn't matter how many rubies were originally in the bag; what matters is the number you report to your boss. Follow that simple philosophy when describing your accomplishments.
TIPS ON DESCRIBING YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
1. Some people will foolishly limit their list of accomplishments to projects that they've actually worked on. This is a mistake. Don't forget the intangible benefit of "thinking about" a project.
2. No matter how badly your project screwed up, focus on how much money would have been lost if you'd done something even stupider. Then count the difference between the failure you created and the even bigger failure you could have created as a "cost avoidance."
3. Include testimonials from unverifiable sources. Your manager is far too lazy to verify your sources. And since your employee file is confidential, the person you quote doesn't need to know about it either.
4. For this year's accomplishments, include everything you did last year and everything you plan to do next year. Bosses don't have a grasp of time. If they did, they wouldn't ask you to do six months of work in two weeks.
This is your chance to use that curious time-awareness deficiency of your boss to your advantage.
WRITING YOUR OWN ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Your boss will mentally scale back whatever wild claims you make about yourself on your input to the Performance Review. Fortunately, your boss is "flying blind" with no way of knowing how much to scale back.
Therefore, logically, your best strategy is to lie like a shoe salesman with a foot fetish.
Here are some recommended phrases that I've used as the input for my Performance Reviews over the years, groups by trendy category.
These are written for the boss' signature, thus removing the need for your boss to do any thinking whatsoever.
Does the employee demonstrate teamwork?
Kevin loves his peers like he loves himself, except without the intense physical attraction. If there's a team, Kevin's on it, even if only in spirit of simply taking credit. That's the kind of team player he is.
Does employee have communication skills?
Kevin is fluent in seventeen languages including the African one with the clicking sound, which he combines with Morse code in order to multi-task.
Does employee demonstrate leadership skills?
Kevin is a natural leader. People follow him everywhere he goes, and they watch him too. Some people say Kevin is paranoid, but no, that's leadership.
Does employee model and foster ethical behavior?
Oh, yeah, big time. For example, he would never exaggerate his accomplishments in an attempt to unethically inflate his salary to the level of "market comparables" that he keeps hearing about.
Does employee set high expectations and standards?
Kevin's standards are so high that he despises the worthless laggards around him--the so-called co-workers. He thinks even less of the customers who apparently haven't taken the time to do any comparison shopping. Kevin's expectations are very high.
He has often expressed his goal of evolving into pure energy and becoming the supreme overlord of the universe. He's got a long way to go, but his hair loss is a sure sign of some sort of rapid acceleration.
Does employee involve and empower others?
Kevin empowers those around him by giving them his work whenever his co-workers are not, in his opinion, busy enough. Sometimes he gives all his work away and has to make up a few things just so everybody gets something. His co-workers couldn't be happier about it because they feel empowered.
Does employee understand the company vision?
Kevin is the only person who has actually "seen" the company vision. He claims it appeared to him one night in the forest and it's "difficult to explain," but he knows it when he sees it. He also came back with some "commandments" from God carved on a flat rock.
Performance Summary
Kevin is my role model. It is my dream to be more like him. Sometimes I follow him around and buy the same clothes. Once in while I rummage through his trash. I once observed Kevin walking around a lake to heal an injured swan. He is love.
If all else fails, try a subscription to Soldier of Fortune magazine and have it delivered to the office. You don't have to read it, just leave it prominently on your desk.
THE PURPOSE OF PERFORMANCE REVIEWS - by Dave Barry
One of life's most frightening and degrading experiences in every employee's life is the annual Performance Review. In theory, the Performance Review process can be thought of as a positive interaction between a "coach" and an employee, working together to achieve maximum performance. In reality, it's more like finding a dead squirrel in your backyard and deciding the best solution is to fling it onto your neighbor's roof. Then your obnoxious neighbor takes it off the roof and flings it back, as if he had the right to do that. Ultimately, nobody's happy, least of all the squirrel.
Theory aside, your manager's real objectives for the Performance Review are:
- Make you work like a Roman orchard slave.
- Obtain a signed confession of your crimes against productivity.
- Justify your low salary.
Your objective as an employee is to milk as much unearned money as possible out of the cold, oppressive entity that masquerades as an employer while it sucks the life-force out of your body. Luckily for you, I am on your side.
The key to your manager's strategy is tricking you into confessing your shortcomings. Your boss will latch on to those shortcomings like a pit bull on a trespasser's buttocks. Once documented, your "flaws" will be passed on to each new boss you ever have, serving as justification for low raises for the rest of your life.
Your only defense against your boss's "development trap" is to identify development needs in yourself that don't sound so bad:
- I need to become less attractive so co-workers are not constantly distracted.
- In the interest in teamwork, I need to learn to control my immense intelligence in the presence of less gifted co-workers.
- I need to learn how to relax instead of working my typical nineteen-hour days.
- I need to make contact with an alien civilization since their technology is the only thing I don't understand.
STRATEGY FOR PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
You know you deserve more money than you're getting, based on two undeniable facts:
1) You show up most of the time.
2) See number one.
WRITING YOUR OWN PERFORMANCE REVIEW
Your boss will ask you to document your accomplishments as input for your Performance Review. To the unprepared employee, this might seem like being forced to dig one's own grave. But after studying this chapter, you will come to view it more like a jewelry store fantasy:
JEWELRY STORE FANTASY
Imagine your boss as a wealthy but clueless jewelry store owner. He gives you these instructions before leaving for a long vacation. “When nobody's around, count up how many rubies are in that huge sack in the back. I've wondered about that for years."
Performance Reviews can be like a big bag of uncounted rubies. It doesn't matter how many rubies were originally in the bag; what matters is the number you report to your boss. Follow that simple philosophy when describing your accomplishments.
TIPS ON DESCRIBING YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
1. Some people will foolishly limit their list of accomplishments to projects that they've actually worked on. This is a mistake. Don't forget the intangible benefit of "thinking about" a project.
2. No matter how badly your project screwed up, focus on how much money would have been lost if you'd done something even stupider. Then count the difference between the failure you created and the even bigger failure you could have created as a "cost avoidance."
3. Include testimonials from unverifiable sources. Your manager is far too lazy to verify your sources. And since your employee file is confidential, the person you quote doesn't need to know about it either.
4. For this year's accomplishments, include everything you did last year and everything you plan to do next year. Bosses don't have a grasp of time. If they did, they wouldn't ask you to do six months of work in two weeks.
This is your chance to use that curious time-awareness deficiency of your boss to your advantage.
WRITING YOUR OWN ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Your boss will mentally scale back whatever wild claims you make about yourself on your input to the Performance Review. Fortunately, your boss is "flying blind" with no way of knowing how much to scale back.
Therefore, logically, your best strategy is to lie like a shoe salesman with a foot fetish.
Here are some recommended phrases that I've used as the input for my Performance Reviews over the years, groups by trendy category.
These are written for the boss' signature, thus removing the need for your boss to do any thinking whatsoever.
Does the employee demonstrate teamwork?
Kevin loves his peers like he loves himself, except without the intense physical attraction. If there's a team, Kevin's on it, even if only in spirit of simply taking credit. That's the kind of team player he is.
Does employee have communication skills?
Kevin is fluent in seventeen languages including the African one with the clicking sound, which he combines with Morse code in order to multi-task.
Does employee demonstrate leadership skills?
Kevin is a natural leader. People follow him everywhere he goes, and they watch him too. Some people say Kevin is paranoid, but no, that's leadership.
Does employee model and foster ethical behavior?
Oh, yeah, big time. For example, he would never exaggerate his accomplishments in an attempt to unethically inflate his salary to the level of "market comparables" that he keeps hearing about.
Does employee set high expectations and standards?
Kevin's standards are so high that he despises the worthless laggards around him--the so-called co-workers. He thinks even less of the customers who apparently haven't taken the time to do any comparison shopping. Kevin's expectations are very high.
He has often expressed his goal of evolving into pure energy and becoming the supreme overlord of the universe. He's got a long way to go, but his hair loss is a sure sign of some sort of rapid acceleration.
Does employee involve and empower others?
Kevin empowers those around him by giving them his work whenever his co-workers are not, in his opinion, busy enough. Sometimes he gives all his work away and has to make up a few things just so everybody gets something. His co-workers couldn't be happier about it because they feel empowered.
Does employee understand the company vision?
Kevin is the only person who has actually "seen" the company vision. He claims it appeared to him one night in the forest and it's "difficult to explain," but he knows it when he sees it. He also came back with some "commandments" from God carved on a flat rock.
Performance Summary
Kevin is my role model. It is my dream to be more like him. Sometimes I follow him around and buy the same clothes. Once in while I rummage through his trash. I once observed Kevin walking around a lake to heal an injured swan. He is love.
If all else fails, try a subscription to Soldier of Fortune magazine and have it delivered to the office. You don't have to read it, just leave it prominently on your desk.
