Performance Evaluation: Needs Improvement

Twice a year HR forgets that they hired me to fill a mickey mouse position that even Mickey Mouse himself would find unchallenging, and presents me with five pages of employee performance evaluation statements upon which I must be rated. Suddenly all those months of tough guy talk and wishing that I could tell management exactly what I think go right out the window. Honesty has no place on a performance evaluation unless you're trying to get yourself fired. And if you're trying to get yourself fired there are probably much cooler ways to do it.

Therefore, you must lie about how much initiative you have and about your burning desire to grow within the company. Lying is not what I have an issue with. My problem is with the fact that 95% of the evaluation statements have absolutely nothing to do with my high school internship of a job. The questions were designed for employees with real responsibilities and real career goals. They were designed for people who have control over budgets and project scopes and who take clients out to the golf course and use phrases like "fire drill" and "skin the golden goose." You think I ever skinned a golden goose? Hell no. Only upper management is that sadistic. What I did do was book their tee time and then complain about it on Twitter. Those are my real responsibilities.  So, in order to help out HR who has apparently lost touch with reality, I have compiled a list of revised statements that I feel would more accurately measure my secretarial performance.

Best case scenario, HR puts a big check mark next to "shows mediocre levels of initiative" in my permanent record.

Second best case, fired.

The Mall

I spent a long time at the mall today and I learned a couple of interesting things:

1)  There are a lot of miserable people out there.  Now I know that I'm pretty miserable at my job, but as a human being I'm doing alright.  These people I'm talking about are miserable at life.  They're scowling, they're slapping their grandchildren, they're just depressing to look at.  And this is how they act at the mall, which is one of the happiest places on earth.

2)  There are a lot of moms who dress exactly like their teenaged daughters.  I can't even count the number of times I saw what looked like two teenagers from the back, only to find when they turned around that one of them looked like Tammy Faye Baker.  I look pretty young and even I'm getting a little unsure about whether or not I should still shop at American Eagle.  Why these 42 year old chain smokers think they can get away with it is beyond me.

The Chilean Miners

I'm sure by now that you've all heard about the 33 Chilean miners trapped for the past 18 days going on 4 months.  According to Chile's Health Minister, Dr. Jaime Manalich:

"We hope to define a secure area where they can establish various places — one for resting and sleeping, one for diversion, one for food, another for work."

Ah yes, a place for sleeping, a place for underground sweaty karaoke, a place to eat your tubes of glucose, and a place to, hold on a minute this can't be right....to work?  There are two times in your life when you are entitled to lounge around playing Scrabble in your underpants,  1) when you retire, and 2) when you are a trapped Chilean miner.  What kind of "work" are they even going to do in there?  I mean if the guys from my office were trapped like that they'd be requesting rolled up tubes of engineering plans be shoved down the 8 cm communication hole.  "Our competitors aren't trapped in a mine," they would shout up to the IT guy because their Blackberries stopped working.

I'm pretty sure the miners however, aside from the oppressive heat and fact that they are sharing a studio apartment with 33 roommates, are pretty keen on getting a 4 month vacation.  To quote Manalich again, "The rescue team is creating an entertainment program that includes singing, games of movement, and playing cards."  Hear that?  Not "singing, games of movement, and creating new budget tracking spreadsheets in Excel." Live it up. You're hopefully only trapped in a mine once.

If my office ever caved in you can be sure I won't be crawling over debris trying to locate the fax machine.  No sir, until the day I run out of air and ketchup packets I'll be reveling in the fact that I got some free time off.  I suggest we allow the miners to do the same.

Busy

I've been too busy to enjoy my new filing cabinet.

Toilet

Our office toilet has now been running for 4 days straight. And boy is it tired.

Newsletters

Our last office newsletter came out in 2007. You could say it's because nothing newsworthy has happened since then, but nothing newsworthy happened in 2007 either.

Speaker Phone

Why do people need to use speaker phone when they're the only person on the call? What are they doing in there that requires total use of their hands? Look, unless you're chainsawing a unicorn out of a block of ice, PICK UP THE DAMN RECEIVER.

Useful

Here is an updated photo of my French memo board that I was so excited about. As you can see it is holding nothing but a Subway points card.

Monday

It's a beautiful weekend. Maybe Monday will die in a tragic boating accident.

Mouse Hand Cold, Dead

Chalk Outline

I think I should do a weekly chalk outline of my ass on this chair. Then I can monitor exactly how much this job is making it grow.

Workforced

I have a short attention span, hence my love of Twitter and flash fiction.  So when I find a blog that makes me want to read post after post, and keeps me laughing hysterically in my cubicle, I like to share.  Don Joe at Workforced.com is an office humor genius.

This is the post that had me losing it this afternoon:

Never before has another man’s flatulence so offended me. Last Friday lunchtime I was waiting for the elevator at work – a fancy glass elevator nonetheless. I know what you’re thinking: someone passed gas in the elevator and it was an unpleasant journey. In essence yes, that is what happened. However such simple words do little justice to a fume so noxious it could wake up the comatose, before killing them.  Continue reading here...

Time

It is 3:05. Time to start the countdown to 3:06.

Apple

I sat outside for a few minutes eating an apple. It smelled like dog shit out there but it's a little late in the season for it to be our dog-shit smelling trees. I must've just been sitting near some shit.

Old Dried Out Elastic Sad Face

Password

One of my passwords has changed.

Haircuts

I think even Barack Obama might schedule his own haircuts.

Labels

I used up a bunch of sheets of half-used address labels. I felt pretty good about helping the environment until I realized that upon receipt, all these letters are going straight into the garbage.

Wanted: Vampire Slayer. Experience with Microsoft Word Preferred.

InStyle magazine recently quoted Twilight star Ashley Greene as saying "I worked in accounts payable before and realized that I never, ever wanted to have an office job again." Everyday I too realize that I never want to have an office job again. I think about it when I wake up in the morning, before I go to bed at night, and from 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Monday thru Friday. So why is it that this girl was actually able to make it happen? Let's take a look at where our paths may have diverged:

1) According to Wikipedia, when Ashley was 17 years old she had a passion for acting. When I was 17 years old I had a passion for AOL chat rooms.

2) Ashley had enough ambition to graduate from high school early and move to Los Angeles to follow her dreams. I had enough ambition to go to college and settle on a liberal arts degree that didn't involve too much math.

3) Ashley probably went on hundreds of auditions and didn't give up until she got her big break in a wildly successful movie. I went on three interviews and accepted a job with a guy who asked me for my "email number" so he could send me a fax.

As a result, Ashley landed herself the Twilight gig and 24/7 access to Robert Pattinson, while I landed myself a series of mediocre secretarial jobs and 24/7 access to regret and self-pity. But as they say, it is never too late to discover what you are passionate about and work it into some sort of enjoyable career. For those of us whose passion in life took an extra 15-30 years to present itself, my advice to you is this: Close your eyes. Imagine yourself as a pack of teenage werewolves. Imagine your career goals as a coven of sparkly vampires whose heads you must rip off with all the fury of your Quileute forefathers. If you keep your career goals in mind, put in the effort to pursue them, and be sure to sever the head completely from the vampiral spinal column, you will almost certainly be guaranteed success.

Failure shall result in an eternity at your desk job - never aging any closer to retirement.