It’s performance review and goal-setting season at the job that pays the bills. This could be my last or next to the last one. Only time will tell. To be honest, it’s something I used to fret over but don’t worry about now. After 46 years in the business, I know how I’m doing and they know.

Not many people are really good about reviews and I’m speaking about both employees and managers. It’s a very hard thing to do. I’ve been on both sides of the table. The scary ones from an employee side are when you don’t get any feedback throughout the year. The scary ones for managers are when you give the feedback all along and it just hasn’t worked out and either managing them out or a bad review is in order.

I get good reviews, and my manager and I see each other a few times a year. And that works well for an old guy who has been at the job for a while, knows it well, and performs. But for most people that isn’t healthy. I’ve also gotten good reviews from managers who I’ve worked with very closely every day and those are a piece of cake.

Honesty is always the best policy in a review even when it’s tough. You do people a disservice if you aren’t honest about what they need to do to improve, challenge themselves, or learn and then execute. If it’s left in generalities or not covered it isn’t going to improve magically.

I’ve had great managers help me grow from reviews and some good managers give me nothing to grow from except my own initiative. I’ve had bad managers that did nothing for me because they didn’t know what I did and never took the time to talk about it and the review was meaningless. The best reviews I’ve gotten have been a good mix of both personal directions, technical growth, and honing this outspoken voice into a coherent non-threatening one. And I’ve been lucky enough to have a few great ones along the way.

Blending perspectives is also important. If you don’t keep your manager up to speed don’t think he/she is clairvoyant because they aren’t. Well, I’ve met one or two maybe but most aren’t. You have to communicate your achievements. You have to communicate regularly. Even if it means a regular status update/report. And you have the right to question their perspective on how they came to certain judgments/assessments. Especially if it doesn’t sound fair.

I don’t know how I got on this tangent today. This will certainly be the last review with my current manager because we get a new one soon. And my guess is that got me thinking about the future and even if I want to do these anymore. I’ll resist being a smart ass on my goals for next year and putting down, survive the year.

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Random Thoughts of the Day

• Just because a person might not attend church it doesn’t mean they don’t have faith.
• Those snows in the Sierras are nice to look at on TV. My guess is not so nice to be standing in multiple feet of it.
• To the person in Clarksville who made a right turn from the left lane through a moving funeral procession almost causing an accident today. May your holiday be full of coal. Think about how lucky you are that you cut the car behind me off and not me. For I would have assumed you wanted to become part of the burial.
• Pain makes it difficult to think about other things than pain.