It’s Performance Review day here at the Lab, and this afternoon I have a meeting with my boss to talk about my work and my goals for the future. I don’t mind these things so much – yes they’re nerve-wracking and I’m more than mildly convinced I’ll be escorted out of the building and told they’ll mail me my things (I’d like to see them try – I have a LOT of things), but I know the alternative is actually worse: getting zero feedback of any kind is not as much fun as you might think, because when it finally happens it’ll be a laundry list of all the ways in which you’ve sucked for the last X years.

Most people see performance reviews as an opportunity to see how well their contributions were received in the last year, what their peers think of them both as a person and as a co-worker, and to come up with some work-related goals for the future. I see the whole thing in a slightly different light – it’s a chance to see how successful I was in convincing (fooling?) people I’m totally competent despite my blue hair and wall of Hello Kitty figures, and how well I trained people to say nice things about me when asked. Yeah, there are perks to being a corporate trainer when you’re evil and unscrupulous. Ask me about my brainwashing sessions some time.

I’d probably be a lot more nervous if my boss hadn’t sent me the write up we’re going over today. There are no big surprises on it (except for maybe the nice things – “second to none” is a lovely thing to hear about what you do), and the things I need to look out for are known to me:

• I take too many sick days (which sucks to hear, but a good kick in the ass is all it takes to get me to walk the line on this so I will not be sick any more)
• I forget to tell people what I’m doing on a regular basis (which is kind of hilarious if you think about it; all I DO is tell people what I’m doing – I’m doing it right now!)
• I can be impatient with people less knowledgeable than me (read: I’m bad with idiots slow learners. In a shocking twist, the slowest learners were the ones who complained – see previous rants on learned helplessness and the inability to learn new concepts no matter how many times you’re shown)

Not bad, really. I think I deserve a cookie. A cookie shaped like a GIANT RAISE.

Or, you know, a fat dong.

kimli takes her projects very seriously and ensures they are driven to completion. her results are reliable and professional.