Some funniest moments from my appraisal
I had my one-on-one meeting for 2012-13 appraisal this week. I was disappointed with the feedback given to me. Well, I have been _work_ing for very long time, and I know if you are not hurt then it is not an appraisal.
We received a lo..ong email from my manager couple of days before the one-on-one meeting, explaining his expectations from resources. A week after we submitted our self appraisal. Though unofficial first rule of appraisal is not to talk about appraisal, I couldn’t help myself from posting this.
- We have raised our bar, so no one get 4. (Points: 1-worst, 4-best)
- Discipline: 1
- Reason: I’m not available in office at 9am.
- Communication: 2
- Reason: My emails were always short, 3 to 5 sentences.
- Kaizen/continuous improvement/initiative and resourcefulness: 1
- Reason: You didn’t participate in any kaizen/improvement or initiative
- Interpersonal skills: 2
- Reason: It is my honest feedback.
- I got three on other parameters.
We have raised our bar
If no one get a 4, what is the point in keeping?
Discipline : I’m not available in office at 9am
Our official work hours starts at 9:30 and only handful of people (less than 5) including security on the days I go early. I have asked is the only parameter? their answer was yes. They don’t consider the fact my flexi-timing is actually 11:30 - 8:30 and I log 12+ hours a day at least once a week. Also not ready to consider, I need to support both AUS and US (CST) client.
I have explained my work timing numerous occasion, It is the way I could skip stupid traffic, and above all I ain’t a morning person. On the days I go early I reach office at 8:00 and stay till 8:30.
Communication: My emails were always short, 3 to 5 sentences.
Yep, That is the only parameter. Oh! well, you don’t use signature just name at the end.
- Do you know sending a short email is the right way of doing it?
- Have you aware of three.sentenc.es or five.sentenc.es?
- Any of my email were ambiguous?
- Did you know I always send my vcard with all necessary info for the first time?
- Do you know your signature breaks my search has:attachment workflow?
- Did you ever find an attachment when required within seconds while you are on a call?
I didn’t participate in any kaizen/improvement or initiative
- Did you know anything about Joel Test?
- Are you aware that I was the one who get repositories created in org’s svn server and checks in code in whole of department?
- Did you know I made sure the team know what is the use of SCM. And follow up with everyone in team to ensure they check in code at least once a day? Well, he did call me and asked what is SCM? when reviewing my self appraisal :-(
- Did you know none of other team’s code gets a backup anywhere except customer organisation?
- Are you aware of the fact I created a portal for the team to share knowledge? in which you are admin and receive notification?
- I share articles within team (mostly inexperienced programmers straight from college) about new technologies, productivity (libraries, scripts, automation)
Interpersonal skills: It is my honest feedback
“It is very subjective” was the feedback. They didn’t point me the direction on where to improve. One other feedback is, I stop them abruptly when talking. Well, it is intentional; If I don’t get what they (customer) was talking about, I stop people harping “Yes, you are absolutely right”.
One other incident this week, I was explaining benefits of native application over mobile web. People on top of my food chain was saying native is not secure as we need to re-implement login and other security features, so it is better to go with the default features provided by salesforce. If it was not a conference call I could have stopped them and would have wrote “OAuth” on white board.
Writing about it more was actually a demotivating task, yet I did it. I may redirect this hate to write a manifest for my imaginary startup.