It must be
Q: Dear Ty,
I just had my performance review at work. I do good work but sometimes I have difficulties meeting deadlines and I am quick to express frustration about mopey coworkers who don't get work that impacts me finished in a timely manner.
It must be nice to work for yourself and not have to worry about performance evaluations. What would you write about yourself if you reviewed yourself?
Sincerely,
- Wall Street
 |
| "Please, sir, I want some more" |
Ty: Good question and an even better observation, WS. Feedback is important in any relationship and the Annual Business-y Performance Evaluation is the bittersweet apple pie filling of the American business fiscal year.
Each and every year, we working stiffs must justify our work existence bowl-in-hand like Oliver Twist, by begging for just one more portion of gruel. It's a pain-in-the-ass brown-nose festival of smiling, schmoozing, and pretending everything is so important and crucial to "career" when we basically just want more money. Secondary reviews, one hundred eighty degree evaluations, promotion advocates, and bonus allocation is the year's-end vampire sucking the blood out of everyone's end of year work-lives. Productivity is only lower during the NCAAs in late March, WS.
Here at Middlespace Arts (or, informally, Middlespace Industries of America because the state of Maryland did not allow me to use "Industries" for my line of work), we take performance reviews very seriously. Our employees are our most important resource. Yet in these economic times, we have to be sure we have the right workforce for these challenging times. Our service experience is our brand experience! Kill me now.
So, WS, what would I write about Middlespace employee badge number 001 for the year?
- Ty has been a key contributor to tKoL/PMM/MIOA since 1996. He has earned the reputation as a diligent, hardworking, and enthusiastic employee.
- Ty's biggest deficiency is his tendency to rush when working with exciting ideas or tasks (as well as tedious and mundane tasks). His rushing has led to embarrassing and historical errors and the duplication of work. But rushing aside, he has demonstrated himself an obsessive archivist, able to find and recreate lost work in an acceptable amount of time.
- Ty can be quite a work-a-holic and is often encouraged to actually slow down his dizzying pace of production to focus not only on what is interesting, but on what is top quality (and what might provide the organization revenue).
- Ty has become a never ending source of ideas and original contributions. He works very well with outside contractors, clients, and collaborators. He continues to bring outside contributors to the workflow while staying attuned to the needs and skills of those in-house.
- Ty's overall set of skills continues to improve across a variety of media. He successfully published hundreds of photographs, and several EP-length recordings which culminated in his recent release, 2011 by tKoL. New to the year was a variety of short videos. He began the year strong with the photo essay, A Hundred Snapshots, and finished even stronger with the On Portraiture (pdf) piece and the In the Arms of the Lords video. And in-between he did a ton of stuff no one ever remembers during a review.
- For FY2012, it is Ty's top business objective to find both revenue streams and sales opportunities. It is his responsibility to support an increased production budget including profits. Marketing will be crucial to this effort.
- For FY2012, it is Ty's top creative objective is to solidify a cohesive, notable style unlike any previously explored or published. He should be entering his most notable creative period and can feel unburdened to explore new creative threads while keeping an eye on the above business objectives.
This should be an exciting year.
Just a guess.
-ty
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