I've Suddenly Thought of a Way To Nail My Next Work Assessment
Boss: OK Caspar, so, thanks for attending this session to
review your performance over the last year.
Me: You’re very welcome!
Boss: So, comparing your results against the professional goals
that you set yourself last year, you stated in your objectives that…
Me: No I didn’t!
Boss: What?
Me: I don’t know who told you that, or where you got this,
the, this so-called fact document or whatever!
Boss: We went over your objectives in April, it’s on the
work intranet.
Me: Ask anyone, ask my mum or the guy who works on reception,
great guy, phenomenal guy, his name’s Ignacio, or Chavez, I never said that I
would or wouldn’t do something, and I’m a man of my word, ask anyone who’s
worked with me, bet you haven’t.
Boss: Caspar. Please let’s look at the document. You stated
that you would implement a new system for the whole team at work to share documents
and files more easily. Now, in October you just sent an email round to everyone…
Me: Oh OK, here we go, can’t wait to hear how this story
ends!
Boss: …saying you couldn’t be bothered, and you wanted to go
for a walk.
Me: OK for starters, are you real? I did not do that, in
fact quite to the contrariness I did set up the new system, matter of fact I even
did it twice, and this was against
the better advice of all my friends all telling me not to work, because it
would have been better for me not to work,
because I’d still get the same salary, but I still did do it and I even did it
twice, just ask anyone on the street, seriously, let’s get serious here, you
keep saying I’m not serious, let’s be serious.
Boss: Why would you do the same thing twice? You only needed
to do it once.
Me: Well this is just everything that’s wrong with this
company, I've got to tell you! [I pause to high-five myself]
Boss: Moving on…
Me: Thank you, at last!
Boss: A new objective for you…
Me: Again I don’t recognise the so-called veracity of this
but continue, please, be my guest.
Boss: A new objective for you was to answer all your emails.
Me: Nope! Wrong.
Boss: It says here that…
Me: I’ll tell you what I do, and I got told I did amazing at
this, best ever, is I sometimes phone someone, or maybe I’ll shout across the
office, you’ve heard me do that, I do what I say I say I do, it’s just as good
as emails, even it’s better because…
Boss: Our international colleagues can’t hear you shouting
across the office, Caspar.
Me: Let me finish, you keep saying I have an attitude
problem, I’m sorry Missy, Miss boss, or should I probably say Ms, I don’t know,
but only one person has an attitude here and it’s not Caspar Salmon. I don’t
email, fine, I’ve said that, I’m on the record as saying that to the bus driver
in the morning when I do my commute, and to Natalie in accounts, and many, many
other people, people I could name all day. But they all say I did excellent,
and the reason is I did a great job.
Boss: But you’ve seriously underperformed over the last
year, Caspar. The figures don’t lie, you haven’t brought in as much revenue
from the…
Me: I’ll tell you revenue! Another word for revenue, which
is just a fancy wording for a word I call money, is I’ve excelled at that from
start to finish, beginning to end, 100 percent, constantly. Money up, figures
up, less negatives and so on. Compared to the previous guy in the job, who
probably got fired, I don’t know…
Boss: James. He died.
Me: Compared to James who died, then, I’ve done incredible.
Boss: This brings me to something that’s quite difficult to
bring up, Caspar, and that’s an attitude problem that…
Me: I’m glad you brought up your attitude problem, I didn’t
want to be the one to do it, but it’s a fact and I’m glad we can talk about
this to be quite frank with you, very glad, because I and many other people,
lots of them, several, believe me it’s dozens, are noticing this attitude from
you and it’s a real big problem.
Boss: No, you’re the person who…
Me: …who has the guts to come on out and say it, and I’m
glad I did, because now who’s the one who’s saying names, calling this and that
to others, about results and emails and attitude, it’s not me, but it’s me that
says things out in the open, and I think this is bad.
Boss: You’re not listening.
Me [almost at the same time]: YOU’RE NOT LISTENING, I’m an
expert OK, I know this stuff, and this is bigger than just did I do what you
said I didn’t do, or not, as the case may be, it’s about whether I was the
best, and I am, and that’s just a fact.
Boss: I’m now warning you that I will have to notify
management of this meeting and conduct a full review of this. It’s just not
acceptable, Caspar.
Me: I’m more than happy to do that, in fact I’ll conduct the review myself, that way I’ll know they did a good job of it, being as I’m the only one
who does any work around here.
Comments