A Colossal Post

To tell you a bit more about my unexpected performance evaluation...

Just as a bit of background, the last two years I've received an "outstanding" rating and my boss has never said anything negative about my work. It's always, "you're doing great, keep up the good work", pat on the back type thing. I've been promoted both years and have received a bonus each time. Last Thursday when I went into his office, I was completely blindsided. I received a "commendable" rating and was told that I wasn't going to be promoted (~$10,000 more per year) but that I was still going to receive a bonus. My written evaluation, which goes into my permanent personnel file, was full of negative comments (I take too long to do projects, I'm not engaged in my work, I don't communicate).

So I took the weekend and came up with what I wanted done. My biggest concern was that this is my last performance evaluation at my current job since I'm on the last year of my contract and it's full of negative things. So there's no way I can show improvement and have it documented. Also, my boss said that he's received these comments about my work in the past two years but he just now brought it up. Why wouldn't he bring up these concerns earlier in my job instead of waiting for the last year??

Anyways, I could go on and on about how wrong I thought the evaluation was...not just the way it was handled but also the negative comments that were said. The one that is the most odd to me is the "I don't communicate" comment because just last year the remark on my evaluation was that "I'm excellent at communication."

So I spoke to my boss yesterday (which is huge deal for me b/c I hate confrontation but knew if I didn't stand up for myself no one else would and I didn't have anything to lose) and told him my concerns and he agreed to take the negative comments out of my written evaluation with the understanding that those were things I need to work on. I could've argued with him about that but I'm somewhat satisfied with the more positive written evaluation. I've got a whole laundry list of complaints regarding this organization to air on my final day when I do my exit interview. And I'll be honest, I take everything my boss said in the performance evaluation with a huge grain of salt. Technically, he's my boss but he has no idea what I do day to day and the only time we speak is for my performance evaluation. He has to rely on what others tell him to even come up with the evaluation.

Just a reminder of how much I need to find a different job. I'm still pissed about the way my evaluation went but I'm using that as fuel to find a different job.

As soon as I had taken care of that yesterday afternoon, I got pulled into an argument between my sister and dad. So I've got to call my dad this evening and (stand up for myself again) tell him to leave me out of it since he's the one that pulled me into it and now is mad at me b/c I won't make my sister do something. Lovely. Family and the holidays don't mix well sometimes.

In happier news (yes! please!), I ran 10 miles this weekend! I was scheduled to do 12 but it was a very cold and windy day so I was satisfied with 10. Oh, but something sad did happen...my MP3 player died at mile 8. It's gone...completely worn out. It won't even turn on or anything now. So I've got to complete my last couple of weeks of training without tunes but it's not as hard as I thought it would be. The budget's tight right now since we're moving into a new place (on Thursday!!) so I can't just run out and buy a new one but I should be able to do something around Christmas. I'm thinking the iPhone...my contract on my phone is up and the iPhone would be fantastic to have when I'm running b/c I could have my tunes but also have my phone with me in case something happened. Thoughts??

Well, this is long enough (whew!) so I'll be quiet now.