you root around keep your head
down staying busy at your work
then invariably
corporate finds it necessary your performance is judged(by people who arent necessarily the best to say how effective
youve been but its part of their job description as your superior(careful!) that they
assess your work)
he missed the days that if you
werent doing your job you lost your job no splitting hairs in regards to what
you were
or werent doing
you knew they
knew everything was hands-on
there were no point-systems or
values attached to your how you did your work
once a year you got a raise at the very least in accord with the
cost-of-living index and if only that then
as an employee you could decide should I stay or should I go
you determined your value
if you were willing to risk your personal
evaluation of your worth
Times change
he was making fortyone percent
less than on his last job after being unemployed for three years
he walked into work early as was
his regiment and was promptly greeted by the assistant manager who told him that
when he did punch-in to please come to the rear office where they could discuss
his yearly evaluation
he said he hadnt worked for the company
for a year
the assistant manager replied
evaluations were always performed at this time of the year
okay
he punched in missing the
old-fashioned time clocks clatter as he missed the old-fashioned one-arm
bandits in casinos the only physicality required
now was to be able to push a button with a single finger he couldnt wait for the time when the machine
read your mind(or it was insinuated it did
-- take what you get!)
the review would likely take ten
fifteen minutes
he was on the clock so he
supposed what did he care
but as he moved to the rear of the
business he fronted product making it more visible and sharply aligning it a feign some might think he didnt to suggest the company cared for its
appearance he did
he had an enduring habit of reminding
his employers that while hed be an excellent reflection on the company to the
public the company was obliged to be a reflection on him
if he saw anything on the companys
face that showed him in a bad light reflected poorly on him they could count on
the fact a barefaced fact that hed be the first person in their face
demanding its correction
employment was a two-way street
a condition of his employment
his assistant manager didnt stand
when he entered the rear office or shake his hand
he tried not to hold that against
him
he was a different breed an assistant manager in name only
the manager was a manager in name
only
Corporate finagled everything from
afar managed inventory advertising
touting a down-home local sensibility for the business brand but
ill-representing local product
their
overarching managerial structure was spread too thin the responsibilities and
assigned regions were too large too large geographically for one man(or
woman --
though there were no women)
his management team did exactly what
they were told
he told his manager that he preferred
to stand when he offered him a chair
Cant imagine this will take too
long I havent been here long enough to truly evidence my capabilities nor
reflect your talent being founded in me
he agreed there was little time to
truly assess him but they were required to submit an evaluation of his
performance
On with it then he said
from a personnel folder with his name
on it his manager produced several computer-generated pages that were broken by boldface
headings with a matrix under them
he groaned
Not
KPIs
Excuse me
KPIs Key performance indicators
No KPMs
Key performance matrices
A rose is a rose is a rose or by
any other name it would smell as sweet
Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet
Im not following
I suppose it isnt necessary you
do
I have an aversion to human
resource indices statistical measurements though I would readily admit any attempt
to quantify qualify us also creates work and jobs
An attempt to validate
worth
If
worth has to be validated
I think you can understand appreciate
it is necessary
he smiled
Frankly
we havent time to digress
Someone
somewhere down the line sold this bill-of-goods so far-flung entities could
ascertain their employees anonymous performance
Youd admit the talleys well discuss
are subjective
Subjective
As to objective
I dont follow
Its manipulation I fantasize a pyramid of puppets and puppets
above pulling puppet-strings of underlings
A tantalizing crazy cats cradle
Though it is impossibly vertical
Another conception might be a house-of-cards watching for its inevitable
collapse or for it to be consumed and shuffled in among other decks
Okay Maybe we can get started
Fine by me
later . . .
I dont want to put too fine a
point on it but if the scale I am referred against is from one-point-zero to
five-point-zero and no one has ever been rated above four-point-zero it should top
out at four-point-zero because virtually no one will ever be better than eighty
percent
Accordingly to my school experience seventyeight to eightythree percent was a C
And thats important why
It ought to be important to you
One of the KPMs which blows my mind that it even exists virtually commonsense any
employee who cant follow it ought not to be able to hold their job
Which KPM
Availability and Punctuality First I disagree the two should be conjoined We
we employees dont set our availability yourself management
assigns us our schedules Second if ones
not punctual cant be counted on to meet their obligation they shouldnt be
employed by the company
Finally the fine point I want to
point out is this
If on the companys one to five point
scale and you have professed I am always
early to work which you insist is much-appreciated and I have never been
late how is it possible am I rated three-point-five
By your own assessment by my
log-ins matrix my attendance and promptness Im perfect
Im not even given four-point-zero
which you have say is the highest possible rate one can achieve
Eighty percent according to corporates
scale
I cant imagine no one has ever taken
issue with that proposition
You must recognise dont you
Im diminished
Despite perfect attendance
maybe I should have taken the
chair he offered at the beginning of the interview
standing up above him looking
down on him might have seemed as if I staged it -- not
that I knew what he was going to say -- or adversarial
he briefly made eye contact then
asked what I expected him to do
I told him I expected hed note my
file make an addendumb(thats how I saw
it in my eyes as I said it) and if he was unsure at the end with his wording I hadnt minced my words it shouldnt be hard
to recount them I would sincerely
appreciate him sharing it with me before he closed the book on it
he said he was confident
Good I said
Because I know where you live
1515, Monday,
4 4. 16
1259, Saturday,
30 4. 16
while you read play Fred Friths
Gravity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ARXsaNN2Os
