The appraisal, The Appeal and The Innocent Man.

My favorite month of the year is Raya Month while the month I dread most is appraisal month which usually falls in January or February. My 2007 immediate boss let us do our own self evaluation before he previewed and adjusted the points.

The rest of the team members were complaining about the extra work especially on having to justify each point in a detail write up. I didn’t get the chance to complain because when the notification was sent I was in JB and unable to VPN to office to access the appraisal application. When I was back in the office, I only have 2 days to complete the forms.

So, not enough time to complain to boss or bitch about it with my lunch buddies. As a result, my boss had to go through 5 pages of elaborated project implementation and pre-sales stories. Well, part of them was copy-pasted from some of my previous blog entries with minimum editing. Never realized how useful my blogs are until that day. Heh heh.

The appraisal session was brief and sweet although at the beginning I told him honestly how I hated appraisals. Then he asked whether I hate the appraisal, justifications or the appraiser. Of course the question was left unanswered. Thank god he was not expecting one. Well, The boss didn’t have any issue with me my performance and I was quite happy with the points he adjusted.

The funny thing was, my team mate’s appraisal form was rejected by The boss and he put a comment saying ‘Please put details. Learn from Dayang on how to write justifications.’ Kekekekeke. 2008 resolution No. 5: I should be educating my team mates on how to write technical blogs.

The after effects of appraisal sessions included feeling void and useless even though The boss didn’t have any complain. It’s just that I think most of the appraisal systems implemented in the IT companies in this country are not suitable to evaluate ICT Engineers’ performance. The quality of deliverables should be measured, not the ringgit and sens of the group GP. (Haaa…I got the chance to bitch about this during lunch the next day. Even some of the non-technical employees agreed with me.)

Whenever I felt useless or losing hope and interest in work, I’d pick up one of Mr. Grisham’s creative works. This time my condition was worse than last year, so I picked up 2 books: The Appeal and The Innocent Man.

If you’re feeling depressed and frustrated with L1ngam trial, go and read The Innocent Man. It doesn’t offer a lot of surprises, it is just shocking. The best part is it’s a true story.

If you are sub-consciously trying to solve the L1ngam case or already thought of your own storyline with a few more twists and turns, pause for a while and go read The Appeal. Although it’s a work of fiction, it’s just as shocking. Very timely read indeed.