THE PURPOSE OF PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

One of life's most frightening and degrading experiences in every
employee's life is the annual Performance Review.  In theory, the
Performance Review process can be thought of as a positive interaction
between a "coach" and an employee, working together to achieve maximum
performance.  In reality, it's more like finding a dead squirrel in your
backyard and realizing the best solution is to fling it onto your
neighbor's roof.  Then your obnoxious neighbor takes it off the roof and
flings it back, as if he had the right to do that.  Ultimately, nobody's
happy, least of all the squirrel. 

Theory aside, your manager's real objectives for the Performance Review
are: 

- Make you work like a Roman orchard slave. 

- Obtain a signed confession of your crimes against productivity. 

- Justify your low salary. 

Your objective as an employee is to milk as much unearned money as
possible out of the cold, oppressive entity that masquerades as an
employer while it sucks the life-force out of your body.  Luckily for you,
I am on your side.  The key to your manager's strategy is tricking you
into confessing your shortcomings.  Your boss will latch on to those
shortcomings like a pit bull on a trespasser's buttocks.  Once documented,
your "flaws" will be passed on to each new boss you ever have, serving as
justification for low raises for the rest of your life. 

Your only defense against your boss's "development trap" is to identify
development needs in yourself that don't sound so bad: 

- I need to become less attractive so co-workers are not constantly
distracted. 

-In the interest in teamwork, I need to learn to control my immense
intelligence in the presence of less gifted co-workers. 

-I need to learn how to relax instead of working my typical nineteen-hour
days. 

- I need to make contact with an alien civilization since their technology
is the only thing I don't understand. 

STRATEGY FOR PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

You know you deserve more money than you're getting, based on two
undeniable facts: 

1)  You show up most of the time. 

2)  See number one. 

WRITING YOUR OWN PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Your boss will ask you to document your accomplishments as input for your
Performance Review.  To the unprepared employee, this might seem like
being forced to dig one's own grave.  But after studying this chapter, you
will come to view it more like a jewelry store fantasy: 

JEWELRY STORE FANTASY

Imagine your boss as a wealthy but clueless jewelry store owner.  He gives
you these instructions before leaving for a long vacation.  "When nobody's
around, count up how many rubies are in that huge sack in the back.  I've
wondered about that for years." 

Performance Reviews can be like a big bag of uncounted rubies.  It doesn't
matter how many rubies were originally in the bag; what matters is the
number you report to your boss.  Follow that simple philosophy when
describing your accomplishments. 

TIPS ON DESCRIBING YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

1.  Some people will foolishly limit their list of accomplishments to
projects that they've actually worked on.  This is a mistake.  Don't
forget the intangible benefit of "thinking about" a project. 

2.  No matter how badly your project screwed up, focus on how much money
would have been lost if you'd done something even stupider.  Then count
the difference between the failure you created and the even bigger failure
you could have created as a "cost avoidance." 

3.  Include testimontials from unverifiable sources.  Your manager is far
too lazy to verify your sources

4.  For this year's accomplishments, include everything you did last year
and everything you plan to do next year.  Bosses don't have a grasp of
time. If they did, they wouldn't ask you to do six months of work in two
weeks. 


This is your chance to use that curious time-awareness deficiency of your
boss to your advantage. 

WRITING YOUR OWN ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Your boss will mentally scale back whatever wild claims you make about
yourself on your input to the Performance Review.  Fortunately your boss
is "flying blind" with no way of knowing how much to scale back. 
Therefore, logically, your best strategy is to lie like a shoe salesman
with a foot fetish. 

Here are some recommended phrases that I've used as the input for my
Performance Reviews over the years, groups by trendy category.  These are
written for the boss' signature, thus removing the need for your boss to
do any thinking whatsoever. 

Does the employee demonstrate teamwork? 

Bill loves his peers like he loves himself, except without the intense
physical attraction.  If there's a team, Bill's on it, even if only in
spirit of simply taking credit.  That's the kind of team player he is. 

Does employee have communication skills? 

Bill is fluent in seventeen languages including the African one with the
clicking sound, which he combines with Morse code in order to multi-task. 

Does employee demonstrate leadership skills? 

Bill is a natural leader.  People follow him everywhere he goes, and they
watch him too.  Some people say Bill is paranoid, but no, that's
leadership. 

Does employee model and foster ethical behavior? 

Oh, yeah, big time.  For example, he would never exagerate his
accomplishments in an attempt to unethically inflate his salary to the
level of "market comparables" that he keeps hearing about. 

Does employee set high expectations and standards? 

Bill's standards are so high that he despises the worthless laggards
around him--the so-called co-workers.  He thinks even less of the
customers who apparently haven't taken the time to do any comparison
shopping.  Bill's expectations are very high.  He has often expressed his
goal of evolving into pure energy and becoming the supreme overlord of the
universe.  He's got a long way to go, but his hair loss is a sure sign of
some sort of rapid acceleration. 

Does employee involve and empower others? 

Bill empowers those around him by giving them his work whenever his
co-workers are not--in his opinion--busy enough.  Sometimes he gives all
his work away and has to make up a few things just so everybody gets
something.  His co-workers couldn't be happier about it because they feel
empowered. 

Does employee understand the company vision? 

Bill is the only person who has actually "seen" the company vision.  He
claims it appeared to him one night in the forest and it's "difficult to
explain," but he knows it when he sees it.  He also came back with some
"commandments" from God carved on a flat rock. 

Performance Summary

Bill is my role model.  It is my dream to be more like him.  Sometimes I
follow him around and buy the same clothes.  Once in a while I rummage
through his trash.  I once observed Bill walking around a lake to heal an
injured swan.  He is love. 

If all else fails, try a subscription to Soldier of Fortune magazine and
have it delivered to the office.  You don't have to read it, just leave it
prominently on your desk.