11.2 - Rants & Raves, pt.2

Another random rant.

the next chapter of my last blog...

The year following my bad performance review, I had low motivation at work. Think Office Space, when he starts cleaning fish at his desk... but instead, I would bring fishing reels to work, dismantle them, clean them, then reassemble them. My manager never said anything directly about it, but seemed somewhat amused by my little assembly line. I got my job done, but did the bare minimum necessary. I made sure never to sign up for projects if I could avoid them. One day towards the end of the year, we had our last meeting before our performance review. He asked how I felt about the year so far and for reasons I don't understand, I told him...
"my job is boring. xxxxx is an idiot, I've had to fix her work several times. I don't trust working with xxxxx, he's a backstabber. I don't like coming to work. the customer whines too much. I take long lunches and sometimes sneak 9holes of golf in. I don't like it here. I think the processes we do are completely asinine and a waste of time."

He thanked me for my imput and didn't really address anything, asking what I'd prefer to do. I told him I rather be working on an external account to have some other human interaction and get out of my rut. A month later, I got a great review saying that I showed initiative and was assigned to an external account. I was as surprised as anyone... I had busted my butt the year before and received a sub-par rating. This year, I slacked off and told him I had no motivation... and he gave me a good rating.

I think the whole rating and evaluation system is a farce. It seems so subjective and not based on any solid criteria. I can work on a dozen projects, fail 1, and get a bad rating... or I can work on 4 projects all year and finish them leisurely and get a good rating. I'm not sure what kind of behavior they're trying to reinforce...

Rant off.