jay | mediocre reviews...

My boss stopped by my office a few minutes ago... we have a two-step review process this year. There's an initial evaluation, then the paperwork goes up the chain of command where a rating is assigned, then it is sent back down to the employee to sign. Today was the latter. I had expected an overall "Meets or Exceeds" rating, not the upper-10% "Distinguished" rating, but I'd expected that a couple of the individual subelements would get the higher mark, in places where I'd been innovative or gone far beyond expectations. Nope. Straight M/E mediocrity, all the way across everything.

Apparently I was dinged for minor paperwork delays in things like reading and signing monthly safety statistical summaries... which offset my technical and project victories. I was told that I have to be "absolutely flawless in a given area, without susceptibility to even trivial criticisms" to be considered for the highest rating.

It had already been a stressful week, this is just the bitter-flavored icing...