At work, our promotions are based almost solely on our evaluations, so there’s a lot of pressure to get them as perfect as you can, however you define perfect. They’re due on May 15, and theoretically, they shouldn’t start to be written until April 15, but that’s never the case. The pressure is so intense, people start in January or February, and some offices insist they are completed by April 15, which is really wishy-washy.
They are works of art, really, with polished writing that make a person sound so much better than the average bear, but we’re discovering that it’s no longer kosher to point that out. Sigh. What is the world coming to, really? Because these things carry so much weight, before they are finalized, they go to a panel of people who are only supposed to tell you if you’ve said something “inadmissible” but, to different degrees, give you pointers on how to improve. And this year, I’ve seen some really questionable comments that encourage parity.
One of the “inadmissible” criteria is: “Anything negative or pejorative about the work performance of an identifiable employee.
That’s all the rulebook says. I’ve now seen comments on two people’s evaluations that say things like “This person has the best work ethic of the 35 people in my section” and “This person shined at a job that would have overwhelmed others” as being “potentially inadmissible’’ because they “may be construed” as being “negative.” And on mine, I called my office “multifaceted and oversized” and was told that “was negative.”
Just. So. Stupid. Saying bacon is my favorite food doesn’t disparage pizza. It makes me so angry because for promotions, the people that read all these things will sort them into piles of high, medium, and low. Egads! Someone will be low! And then, as if that’s not insulting enough, they RANK the high ones. We don’t have 188 valedictorians. We have one No. 1, one No. 2, etc. (They do this because the people who divide into the piles don’t know how many people will ultimately be promoted. They could have 51 in the ”high” pile, but there may only be 36 people promoted; those panels don’t know that final number.)
And calling my office “oversized” is negative? Get real. It IS oversized. The taxpayer in me acknowledges this. It’s also not negative. And, you know what? If it is, so what? My office is not an identifiable employee.
I just feel like people are reading way too much into what’s in black and white and trying to inject things that aren’t there. It’s not like the evaluation says, “This person is the only one of my 35 employees that has a good work ethic.” But you know what, “work ethic” is not the same as “work performance.” Even that (which I’d never say) doesn’t fall in like with what’s inadmissible.
When I brought this up, I was asked how I’d feel if my evaluation was thrown out for that. I was like, bring it on. I’d take it to court because what was written absolutely is admissible.
But my evaluation is done, thank goodness. I am scheduled to go out on R&R and I didn’t want it hanging over my head.
In celebration (not really) I took part in a couple of the drills we do here. This one staged a mass casualty car accident. In reality, we’d never have one of these in the location we did the exercise, but it could happen on the street outside the embassy.
Something I did not know about myself: I am a fantastic method actor. I was totally into it. For the first one (we did one for night shift and one for day), I had a hurt arm and was not cooperative patient. First, I stumbled out of the car and then, waiting on medical care, got agitated and tried to walk to the doctor’s office. Quite honestly, in reality, I can see myself doing that: I was mobile and conscious, and I knew where the office was. Why wait for help?
When they steered me back to where I was, I saw another “patient,” who was lying on a stretcher. I then turned it up a notch and flipped out: I started screaming "That's my friend! Cary, are you OK? Talk to me! CARY? Oh, no, she's DEAD! She’s dead, isn’t she?” Just over and over. The finally took me to the health unit (which wasn’t the one I would have walked to, so they were right to head me off at the pass!) and they brought her in, on the stretcher, at the same time I’d just gotten up to go back to be “examined.” I fell back down, crawled over to her and started tugging at her arm, begging, “Please say something, please talk to me.” It was quite a performance, and later she told me it was all she could do to not burst out laughing.
The next morning, I got to be the driver with two injuries, and I just faked massive pain. The poor guards, who are the first people on the scene, did such a great job and will probably never look at me again. They’d been told to keep talking to me and one asked if I had kids and I just screamed no but it couldn’t be more pain than this. I’d double up with pain and then just sob. I honestly have no idea how I did it.
Since the stretcher thing didn’t work out – I don’t know why – four people carried me to the transportation, which was a Bearcat. This was cool, because I have wanted to ride in one, but it was not a fun ride. Once they loaded me in – with me almost choking on my badge, for real, and getting a bit queasy, they shifted me to a litter and then taking off – slowly – but still over speed bumps. I honestly thought I was going to toss my cookies.
Finally, I was
brought into the health clinic and just kept it up. They gave me some kind of
drugs (mimed this, I mean) and I asked (out of role) what would happen if I
took it and the doctor said my mental state would deteriorate so I went with
it. Gosh, it was so much fun.
They told me I was the best role player they’d seen! And I was honestly nauseous after it. It took about an hour for my stomach to settle down. But man, it was so much fun.
