Tis the season for many to go through the agony and the ecstacy of the annual performance review. So few of these are done in a really productive way, and, it seems, a lot are downright awful. If you want to vent about a review, or just revel in knowing how much worse it could be, check out worstreview.com, where readers can post their horror stories and comment on other people's experiences. It may not help you get that raise, but catharsis is always a good thing. The worst one yet, in my opinion, is poor Don's story:
- It was early February and the deadline for the performance reviews for the prior year was just passed. I had not had mine, not surprising in HR.
I happened to be entering the men's bathroom at the same time as my boss. Standing side by side at adjacent urinals, he remarks that he hadn't had a chance to go over my review with me but now was as good a time as any. The sum of the conversation was that I'd had a good year, he was pleased as were the senior managers who worked with me.
All of this was bad enough (and a bit humiliating since we were not alone in there) but the summation was really priceless. Walking away from the urinal, he told me to "keep it up" in the new year...
In retrospect, I was again reminded why there should be no big surprises during the performance review. I can only imagine if my attention had been distracted at a key moment because of either a very good or a very bad surprise.
P.S.: We didn't shake hands after the review, in case you were wondering.
One other thing this site did for me is to make me really appreciate how good I have it.