And your rating is...

Finally, I have a Guest Blog. This is from one of my very close friends, Paheli. It's clear he was very frustrated when he wrote this but below is the post just as he wrote it.

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Whenever I am experiencing anything new I get very excited about it. Nothing unusual about it. But if, god-forbid, something is not PERFECT about it, I get inspired to write about it. Scream and tell the world, "Look, how wrong they are". No wonder, I criticse girls so much. (Although I say girls in general, I only intend to criticize only the stereotypes.)

Coming back, I have finished my first ever appraisal in a company. And I haven't been really impressed by it. Infact, I have been heavily disappointed by it. So, I thought I should voice my opinion immediately. And almost instantly after having decided to write this post, I had the every sentence framed up in my mind. And this is how it goes:

Location and Cast: A closed-room packed with a lot of Managers, Vice-Presidents, etc. Put differently, all the guys who call the shots in their respective projects/domains. But most of them are scared to even open their mouth here (unlike anywhere else) because, in the room are also BIGGER people than them (hierarchically). Also in the crowd are some noisy class of people. People who want to voice their opinion, even when they have none. And not to forget the FCPs (where MCP stands for Male Chauvinistic Pigs).

Procedure: A slide is brought up with an employee's details. Then, ideally, a constructive discussion must go on to discuss how well the employee has performed over the year and where all he/she can improve.

Scenario 1: If the employee's progress over the year has only been average, then he/she is immediately awarded "Average" and somebody calls out, "NEXT !!!". Everyone has only one thing on their minds, "Lets get all this done quickly. It's tiring."

Scenario 2: In the cases when the "somebody" on the slide has proven himself above the rest, everybody is silent at first. This is because everybody is waiting for one of the BIGGEST guys or the biggest mouths to speak first.

Scenario 2.1: If one of the BIG guys says, "I know him. We both get along well. I expect he would have done a good job on the project as well." And immediately, the Project Manager jumps in with, "Ofcourse, how could he not have done great on the project." And everyone agrees with whatever the BIG guy proposes.

Scenario 2.2: If instead, the discussion had started out as, "I hardly know him. How did he do in all the aspects." Then it would depend on how many BIG mouths are there to speak for him. And if he/she happened to be in the good books of a BIG mouth, or someone who is himself in the good books of a BIG guy, consider him/her to be rated "Exceptional". Else, it will understood to be written in his Development Needs, that "Need to do more NETWORKING".

Scenario X: This scenario is rated 'X' because it is special. The speciality of this scenario is rooted in the very definition of "Relativity" and its ineffectiveness in rating people. I say this because what if more than 10% of the group had done a great job and proven themselves "Exceptional" on the Absolute scale...

So, this is what you are supposed to learn from the way Appraisals are done...

1) NETWORKING is important. We have always heard this, haven't we? But we only never understood its significance. What it really means is, "At the end of the day, what is important is - Who all know you? So, leave an impression on everyone you meet.. and meet a lot of people"

2) TEAM WORK - Apart from networking you are supposed to believe in Team Work... So leave the work for your team.. It's not only you, I have heard this PJ before as well... Except that, only now can I see where it originated from and also realised that it's not a PJ..

The post I intended to write on Appraisals in companies ends here... It was meant to be an exaggerated view of showing where we were lacking perfection...

But before I got to writing this post, over some coffee-break discussion with colleagues and friends, I realised I wasn't exaggerating as much as I had thought I was... Although the blog as a whole is an exaggeration, but it is still true. In the sense that, each of the scenario's did take place in someone or the other's case..

While I was happy that my exaggerated prediction (if you could call it so) was proving out to be true, I was also heavily disappointed about the same.. And overall, I was more disappointed than I had reason to be happy.. The whole cause of an Appraisal was lost :(

Paheli

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And this is where the Guest Blog ends