Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Oh.. So you do meet the Expectations!


Well, its been a kinda busy and confusin' last couple of weeks.. busy - coz a bit preoccupied work and other non defining activities and confusing - coz I yet again start getting entangled in this ever so complex web of Appraisals a.k.a 'Performance Assessment'.

I still r'ber during my school days when we were given report cards which basically presented statistics about our performance in various subjects. Aha.. well quantified and self explanatory. No discussions (unless you flunked) required.
The basic idea still continues with this transition from education to profession, but then the quantification decreases exponentially.

At some places we have the grading system, at others we do have an even more complicated points system and so on. The specifications increase and in comes the end of the Calendar Year and you get to know that your boss/co. expected so much *more* of you. Well, forget those hard work late at night that you put in throught the year and forget those sick weekends where you had to work. Blah..

With the increasing demand of quality in business, be it technology or manufacturing, sometimes I wonder if the drafters of the various firms stretch this concept a bit too far to an extent that it becomes utterly hilarious. Personally, I do feel that the appraisals (read hikes) are directly proportional to the nth root of the companies profits/sales. Yeah, I do understand that some might say that the fella must have sound technical/teamwork/communication skills blah blah blah.. and another blah.. but ultimately what matters is how critical Mr. X is to his co. Y Inc. Hmm.. why the heck am I writing this though, I've not yet had my appraisal, but with the growing concern among my friends I just thought to post something here.

Sometimes I really wonder how the managers/seniors come out with this vital number which suddenly becomes a definition of what one did at his/her workplace. All of a sudden, in those couple of hours of meeting, plans are laid out for the future and a supposedly clear and *fair* explanation is given for your achievements during the past year. Did he watch you that closely? Beware, were there any close circuit cams surrounding you? Interestin' huh? Well, how I wonder if I could possess those abilities to come out with a brilliantly crystal clear understanding about the problems at work..Dammit, I'd be a genius then!

Disclaimer: This *DEFINITELY* does not involve the place where I work and has nothing to do with it. Its just a general perception that I've developed over a period of time and nothing *more*.

3 comments:

Harish said...

lol...
liked your disclaimer.

Amol Agrawal said...

Nice to see a blog after a long time and a different one dude....

I agree with most of it except ".....but ultimately what matters is how critical Mr. X is to his co. Y Inc."

Well most of the time it is "...but ultimately what matters is how well Mr. X has performed in eyes of his boss...." That is the golden rule whether one likes it or not..

@purV said...

May be.. but my perception has just become so goddamn polluted so I tend to take things the way they are presented.. :)

Harish, before I wrote the article, bang came my disclaimer first.. :D