Ahead of the deadline

April 15 is a big day in my world. It’s the end of my employer’s rating period, which signals a month of frantic writing of evaluations.

They’re horrible things, really, and a great exercise in both quasi-fiction and writing around topics. If our EERs – what we call these things – were movies, they’d be “inspired by real events.” A few could be classified “based on a true story” but barely any are hardcore documentaries.

If anything comes good out of anything you were involved in – even loosely or peripherally involved in – you can take full credit. If you didn’t sign the contract, you “contributed.” Doing nothing but showing up and nodding can be defined as “contributing.” Even if you as an individual did absolutely nothing but boss and order people around for 365 days, you are able – and even encouraged – to take the credit of what they accomplished.

It’s really sickening because the people who read these things base promotions off of them. Since people aren’t honest and embellish up the wazoo, these things sound phenomenal and louses get promoted. It’d be nice to see people write, “Soandso so is an idiot and didn’t do a damn thing all year” when Soandso is an idiot and didn’t do a damn thing all year. Instead, they’re scared of getting sued so it comes out more like, “Soandso gets along well with her peers and subordinates and her section has accomplished X, Y and Z during this rating period.” Except there’s also a comma after “Y” because we have to use the Oxford comma.

That’s another thing about these. The junior officers are so freaked out over them that they really believe something like the use of the Oxford comma, using two spaces vs. one after sentences or spelling out what “TDY” will make a difference between getting tenured/promoted or not.

Seriously, people, if your promotion depends on putting a comma after the “white” in “red, white and blue,” do you really want to work there?

Me, I just don’t care. I’ve written how I liked and barely made any suggestions to the other two people who have to “rate” and “review” me and I’ve done fine. I just don’t think it’s worth stressing over. It’s really amazing the amount of time spent on these. There are people who have to write 15+ of these things (my Guanghzou bosses were on the hook for 25 or so every year) and that’s a giant time suck, especially when you get high-maintenance officers who want to control every word of what two other people write. It’s painful, and parts of the department shut down for two months to work on them. My first big boss literally blocked off four hours of each day for over two months to write them. Nothing else gets done.

Since my job is to push these through the HR process, it also will take up much of my day from here until May 15, the deadline. My goal is to get mine done and then get out the whip to crack on everyone else.

I’m very much into getting the pain over with, and that goes for the other April deadline as well. Taxes are just horrible. This year hasn’t been fun. I don’t understand the new tax laws – I never do – but between the fact that the charitable check I write annually didn’t clear until January 2018 and that I got a promotion, I got socked with paying four digits instead of getting back anything. I’m not sure how it happened but it’s really annoying.

What is also annoying is tax software. I’ve used TurboTax for 10-15 years and have been fully satisfied with it, but last year they dumbed it down. I think using the phone/tablet software things have made things so much worse. I hate scrolling and miss having it all on one page. TurbotTax has done that in spades. It’s just a series of “duh” questions that aren’t relevant with cutesy responses.

I hate clicking just to click and that's all TurboTax is now. It takes forever to get through a single subject. To answer one question, you go through a series like this:

Let's see if this applies to you click we'll ask you some questions click are you ready click are you sure click ok click here's option one click how do you answer click are you sure of your answer click here's option two click how do you answer click are you sure of your answer click here's option three click how do you answer click are you sure of your answer click one last chance to verify your answers click are you sure click do you want to review your answers click are you sure click ok, are you ready for the answer click here it is click do you like the answer click great! Click.

And then you get to No. 2. It’s lather, rinse, repeat and it’s made a laborious process even more laborious.

This year I cut the cord and moved to H&R Block. It cut the clicks by maybe 30 percent. Still a PITA, and I had to pay slightly more in taxes but it was worth it to cut the clicks. I’m just glad it’s over with.